Brewing Up a Little Love
by IcyPanther
Summary: Draco Malfoy hates Muggles and Muggleborns. Horace Slughorn hates losing a promising student.  And poor Hermione Granger is just caught in the middle. With Slughorn's plan something more than just potions may soon be brewing in the classroom. On Hiatus
1. Chapter One

**Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its characters, setting, and amazing-ness belong to the wonderfully talented J.K. Rowling. I am but a humble author doing what I can to make you all laugh and appreciate a fandom that should have been canon.**

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter One**

The day was like any other. The November sky had been overcast and a rumble of thunder could be heard on the horizon, the promise of a storm lingering in the near future. Students dragged themselves from their warm beds to greet the cold stone that lined the halls and then trudge to breakfast, backs laden with textbooks and parchment for another day of learning.

And just like every Monday in the history of Hogwarts, Hermione was up and ready to go promptly at six-thirty and waited impatiently for Harry and Ron to show themselves at seven. They had Potions at seven-thirty and then Herbology at nine. Slughorn had told them last class that what they would be working on starting the next week was a large portion of their grade. And always trying to keep her almost perfect list of straight O's, the Gryffindor witch was determined to excel at whatever the new Potion's professor gave them.

Tapping her foot impatiently, the girl gave a huff as the two boys in question made their way down the staircase. Ron was yawning loudly, giving everyone who was watching a full view of his tonsils, and running his hands through his messy hair. Harry hadn't even bothered, no one could tell when he brushed it or when he just came down a bed-head.

"How late were you up last night?" Hermione asked, noticing the dark bags beneath both sets of eyes, Harry's glasses doing little to hide his.

The two exchanged guilty glances. "Dunno," Ron said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly and giving another yawn. "We were… working on our star charts… yeah, and they were really exciting… and we couldn't stop…" His hopeful grin made Hermione give a sigh and shake her head, amusement clear in her eyes.

"What am I going to do with the two of you?" she asked, shifting her book bag onto her shoulder and heading towards the portrait hole.

"You could take notes for us during Potions so we can sleep," Ron said, face completely serious.

She swatted the back of his head. "What we're doing today is a large part of our grade, Professor Slughorn said. So the two of you will both remain alert and attentive throughout class. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Hermione," they echoed, traipsing along behind her energetic step. The Great Hall was bustling with morning-students like Hermione when they reached it, while the night owls were nearly dozing in bowls of porridge. Ushering the two into their seats, the witch placed steaming plates of waffles in front of them and poured a large glass of orange juice for them all.

"Why were Mondays invented?" Ron moaned, chewing on his waffle with his head resting on the table. "Can't we just skip from Sunday to Tuesday? That just sounds better."

"Agreed," Harry said, a bit more awake than the redhead and actually eating his breakfast with a fork. "Or, if it just went Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then back to Friday."

"Yeah!" Ron said enthusiastically. "But… we still have classes on Friday. So, just Saturday and Sunday would be better."

"The reason we're all here, you know, is to learn," Hermione said, peeling a banana. "Besides, seven-thirty isn't that early. You always manage to get up for early Quidditch practices that you have at seven."

"But that's different," Ron argued, reaching across Harry for the bacon. "That's, you know," he said, mimicking Hermione, "fun. And I like fun. I do not like Potions."

"Potions can be fun," she said. "You should at least like it a little better since Professor Slughorn is teaching it and not Snape."

"That may be true and all," Harry countered. "But Snape got moved to DADA. So, my favorite class ever, has now been utterly ruined."

"Better than when Umbridge taught it."

"… It depends on your point of view."

"At least Snape actually teaches us."

Ron, meanwhile, had tuned out the conversation that actually required thought processes and was shoveling hash browns at an alarming rate into his mouth. It was a wonder he hadn't yet eaten the fork.

A little while later the group headed off for Potions, with only a quick stop for Harry to perform the Heimlich Maneuver on Ron, who had swallowed a teaspoon that he mistook for a sausage.

Entering the dungeons, they were quite surprised to find Slughorn fluttering about instead of sitting in his customary spot at the desk. He was decked out as gaudy as ever; orange and green pinstripe suit with garish silver buttons holding in his stomach.

A sheen of sweat shone on his forehead, but his large smile was what nearly blinded the students entering the dimness of the dungeons. "You're all in for a treat," he chuckled, rubbing his hands and beaming at them. "A real treat, I tell you."

"I don't like it when professors are so happy over something," Ron mumbled, sliding into his seat between Harry and Hermione. "He's probably found a new way to torture us or something."

"Professor Slughorn isn't like that, Ron," Hermione admonished. "What he has planned is very vital for our grades, so it probably is something to get excited about. I know I am."

"Well, that makes you the only one," Harry sniggered, looking at the faces of their fellow classmates. Their Potions class consisted of all the sixth year Gryffindors and Slytherins, although without Snape as the professor it was more bearable than previous years.

The Slytherins were all shooting evil glares at Slughorn as he continued to flap about in excitement, mopping at his forehead with a bright orange handkerchief. Once the clock struck seven-thirty, Slughorn coughed loudly and then grinned even wider, if it were possible.

"What we're going to be working on for the next few days is a large portion of your grade," he said. "I chose to do this now, and not later, because of what we've been studying the last few classes. Can anyone summarize it for me?"

Hermione's hand shot straight up into the hair and with a chuckle, Slughorn called on her. "We've brewed a sadness potion, an excitement potion, a fear potion and an anger potion over the last month," she said, the know-it-all tone creeping into her voice. "All of the potions dealt with emotion and feelings."

"Very good, ten points for Gryffindor," he said. "What Miss Granger said sums up very accurately what we've done. And if you had paid any attention and followed the directions correctly, you would realize all of those potions were brewed in similar manners.

"For this project, you will be making your very own emotion based potion relying on the past knowledge and ideas we have covered in class. You will have an entire week, including today, to do research and then make it."

"Excuse me, Professor, but how exactly will we know they work?" Hermione asked. Beforehand, all the potions they had done were standard textbook ones and so long as it turned out the color and thickness the book had described they were awarded full points.

"That's the fun part of this project," he chortled. "You'll get to test your potion on each other. Now, don't look at me like that," he said, holding up his hands as several students raised eyebrows and shook their heads. "I promise you won't be left like that; an antidote must also be made, which will then be applied. We'll know if it works if you actually need to use the antidote."

"And what if someone screws up the antidote?" asked Zabini, his dark eyes wary. They all had a right to be suspicious, Neville and Crabbe _and _Goyle _were _in the class. "All of the potions we've done don't stop working unless the antidote is applied."

Slughorn waved the question away. "If something does happen, I'm sure I'll be able to fix it. Just so long as no one throws out their potion, so I will require a small sample of everyone's to be turned in as well.

"Now, before you all start researching, there are a few things you should be aware of. First, all ingredients are available. If you require something that our basic stores don't have, ask me and I'll try to find it for you. Second, the partner you will test your potion on will be randomly drawn. So don't come to me if you get paired with someone you don't like. It'll only be for a few minutes anyways.

"And lastly, I'm deciding on the type of potion you'll be brewing. If I left it as a free-for-all I think things could get rather ugly," he laughed. "So, I've decided on a potion that hopefully won't cause too many disturbances in the class."

"Why does he have that gleam in his eye?" Harry whispered to Ron, the redhead shrugging and shrinking back in his chair.

"We'll be making… love potions."

A sudden silence followed the announcement. And then it was quickly followed by outbursts and complaints.

"WHAT?" Seamus roared, trying to lunge at the portly professor and only being held back by Dean. "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL? LOVE POTIONS?"

"You can't be serious," Draco Malfoy said, silver eyes flashing.

Slughorn waved his hands for quiet. "It will only be for a few minutes," he said soothingly.

"All it takes is a few minutes to scar someone for life," Blaise muttered, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike nodding and agreeing.

"Well, you either take a failing grade for it or you have some fun at someone else's expense for a few minutes. You'll get to get back at your partner though with your own potion, so it's not the end of the world.

"I have several books up here on the properties of love potions. Feel free to come take a look, but you may not copy the exact formula. You need to make it your own. Let's get started. You have the rest of this class period to do research and then on class Wednesday and Friday you will be able to brew them. I'll be in my office if you have any questions."

Thus saying so, Slughorn took his leave, a bit too hastily for someone who was supposed to be unruffled, and left the class to their own devices.

"I refuse to do this," Ron said stubbornly, crossing his arms and glaring at his cauldron like it held the source for all his problems. "I don't know if I even could do it."

Hermione, having gone up to grab one of the books, returned and set the book on the ledge with a thump. "It'll be fine," she said, opening it and blowing the dust out of the pages. "So long as I don't end up getting paired with Malfoy," she said, shooting the silvery blond a dark look across the room. "And the odds of that are happening are quite slim. Only a little over 10 percent actually, assuming Slughorn is pairing us by gender. There are nine guys and nine girls, so we're pretty evenly balanced." (1)

New looks of horror crossed Harry and Ron's faces. "We might…?"

"…oh bloody hell," Ron muttered. "Slughorn wouldn't do that, would he?"

"He didn't say he wouldn't," Hermione reminded him. "And he said it'd be random picking, so it could be possible."

"I will fail before that happens," Ron said. "I mean, I guess it wouldn't be so bad if a girl fawned over me for a minute but… bad mental images," he said, shuddering.

Hermione gave a little laugh and began to read the book, jotting down interesting looking potions and ingredients to try.

When she had said anyone but Malfoy, she meant anyone but Malfoy. He was the one person she could say she actually hated. And hate really was a strong word. She had tried to give him chances to prove himself not all evil, but her patience had run out.

Since she had first met him, he had teased and poked fun at her. Then, starting second year, he began to call her that awful, cursed word. And it had only gotten worse. This year was no exception.

He seemed to have a personal vendetta against her this year, switching his attentions from Harry to her. She had been accosted several times in the halls by him, threats whispered in her ear against her and her friends. The taunting got worse, she was no longer even Granger but now simply "Mudblood."

She didn't know what had changed. Maybe it was Slughorn and how he hadn't invited him to join his little "Slug Club" while she, a muggleborn, had been. Or maybe it all dealt with their grades. They had all been owled their class standings before the year started, with the top three students listed for all to see to 'honor their achievements'. She had been ranked number one and he second (Ernie MacMillan was third).

Telling Harry and Ron didn't help matters at all. Ron swore vengeance and wanted to beat his "stupid pale face in" and Harry was all set to "accidentally" smash him into the Quidditch pitch during the next match as well as join Ron in some "Malfoy pummeling".

Whatever the case was, his hatred was now matched with hers. It wasn't helping matters as they both slowly began to realize they would most likely both be the Heads in their seventh year and they would be forced to share a living quarters together. She preferred not to dwell on that fact and only prayed Ernie would take his place (she adamantly refused to give up her claim on Head Girl).

The most she could do now was do her best to ignore him and hope he would do the same. Thus far, it wasn't working all that well. It didn't help that almost all of her classes had him in them. Her Advanced Ancient Runes, where there were only eight of them, and he just happened to be the only Slytherin there. Gryffindors had double DADA and Care of Magical Creatures with Slytherin so she saw him then. Their Transfiguration and Charms classes were next to each other and met at the same time so they often saw each other in the hallway leaving and going.

Almost as if he could tell she was thinking about him, the pale Slytherin glanced up from a discussion with Zabini and glared in her direction. She returned it, but ended up averting her eyes first. His gaze was like molten silver and it almost physically hurt to look at, much like one looking at the sun.

"So, any ideas?" Harry asked, looking half-heartedly at his notes from the previous potions.

"I want a slower acting one," the witch said, flipping through the thick pages. "All of the ones listed in here are quite fast-acting. Within minutes, actually. I don't know how I'll make a slower one, but I'm sure I can figure it out. The Antipodean Opaleye's scales are used in a lot of potions designed to slow the effects of something. They might work."

"The anti-what a dean?" Ron asked, glancing up from his tic-tac-toe game against himself.

"The Antipodean Opaleye," Hermione said patiently. "It's a dragon native to New Zealand and Australia. But I'm sure those aren't in the student supplies; they're quite rare. I'll have to go ask Professor Slughorn," she said, sighing and rising to her feet. "Be back in a few minutes."

Rapping lightly on Slughorn's office door, she let herself in, sighing in defeat as she glanced over her shoulder and saw Harry participating in Ron's games. The Potions professor was sitting behind his desk, reading a novel with a pair of gold spectacles perched on his nose.

"Hermione, dear, what can I do for you?" he asked, reverting back to the very personal Slughorn everyone in the "Slug Club" had come to known.

"I need your help, Professor," she said, taking a seat in the red cushioned chair opposite him. "I want to make a slower-acting potion, but all of the ones we made and the ones in the books are all fast acting."

"Slow acting?" Slughorn interrupted. "What do you mean?"

"Well, all of the general love potions make a person fall in love right away. I want to try and make one where it's gradual… like the person who took the potion notices small positive things about the person and they fall in love, for real. It'd be like magnifying all the good points and making them see what they thought was bad or never noticed pop out more."

"So it modifies the emotions?" he asked for clarification.

"Sort of… I can't say for certain, but it doesn't really change someone's emotions. It would instead sort of bring down their walls, so to speak, and make them more aware of the other person. So I guess, it sort of would modify emotions, because the person under the potion would act upon their newfound feelings instead of ignoring them like they normally would have because the potion wouldn't allow that.

"And I figured that Antipodean Opaleye scales might work, because they're used to slow down effects of poisons. But I don't know where I would find any. Although this is all just speculation," she admitted. "I'm not sure if it would even work at all."

"I'm certain if you put your mind to it, Hermione, you can do anything," he said warmly. "As for the scales, those certainly are rare," he said, tapping his round chin thoughtfully. "But since you're one of my dearest students, I shall try and procure some for you. I know of several previous students who have connections with the Australian Wizarding Council. I'll talk to them on your behalf. Do you know how much you'll require?"

"Um," she said, brow furrowed. "Maybe ten ounces? A little more would always be better, in case it isn't strong enough."

"I'll do what I can, my dear," he said, patting her gently on the hand. "Just leave it to me."

"Thank you, Professor," she said with a large smile. She hated to get special favors, but it wasn't like she had done anything different to gain Slughorn's interest. And if he could get the scales for her, she'd be all too happy to be roped into the "Slug Club" life. At least for a little while.

He waved her off with a smile, already drafting a letter to whatever associates he had that might be able to obtain the scales. Humming, she exited back into the class, and over to her book again.

"Could Slughorn help?" Harry asked, jotting in an 'o' and grinning as Ron scowled.

"He said he'd contact some friends in Australia for me and see if they couldn't not get me some."

"Don't use that," Ron muttered, hatching an 'x' and giving a smug smile to Harry as he won.

"Use what?"

"That double… double niffler? Double nerkin…?"

"Double negative?" she supplied.

"Yeah. They confuse me."

She laughed and shook her head. "I don't really notice when I use them. But I think they sound sophisticated."

At that exact moment, they all clearly heard Malfoy telling Zabini, "It's not unlike anything I've ever seen…"

"Okay, dropping the double negatives," she muttered, while Ron and Harry burst into loud laughter. Feeling her cheeks redden, she turned back to her book and remained like that for the rest of the class, hoping to be a role model to her best friends. But it didn't work. Not like she had ever expected it to; the day was as normal as ever.

xxx

The rest of the day passed by quietly and without surprise. Herbology had been simple and after eating lunch with Harry and Ron, Hermione had vanished to the library to get her essay for Snape done and to plan a bit more on her potion.

From there, she had gone to dinner and then to her dorm after a quick prefect meeting. Besides Malfoy glaring at her, nothing had gone wrong and she would call it a successful day.

So when she crawled into bed later, she didn't know why such a feeling of unease washed over her. Even Crookshanks' purring couldn't soothe her, as it normally did when her half-kneazle cat decided to show some affection.

She didn't understand what there was to be concerned over. She had finished her homework that was due a few days in advance. She had almost completely decided on the design for her potion, and would work on the little details as she made it. She had eaten, warned Ron and Harry to go to bed at a decent hour, and had taken a nice, hot shower.

Curling up in a tight ball, her hands stroked Crookshanks' fur and she attempted to sleep. It had to be nothing. There was absolutely nothing for her to be worried about (except for the impending confrontation with Voldemort, but for some reason she didn't think that was it).

If that were true, then why did she feel like something horrible was about to happen?

xxx

xxx

**Author's Notes:**

(1) A footnote already? Well, this is for counting issues. Supposedly, Rowling had five guys and five girls in every year in every house. However, I only know of the three Gryffindor girls and four Slytherin girls, but five for each guy (including Nott, whom I think of as a year above). So, for the purpose of this story, there are only four guys in Slytherin house (Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini) and there are six girls in Slytherin (Parkinson, Greengrass, Bulstrode, Davis, and two girls I'll make up-don't worry, they don't have really any role). Plus all of the Gryffindors will appear. Capiche? Good.

What is this you ask? I'm not sure myself. Ask the plot bunny that has attached itself to my arm. I swear I said I wouldn't be writing any new fic, but, that darn little rabbit wouldn't let me go till I wrote this. So, here we are.

A romance/humor fic full of Draco/Hermione goodness that I'm sure you're all going to love. I'll probably put some Harry/Ginny in their too, just because they're my second favorite couple. It will also (strangely enough) also be a Ron/Pansy pairing. Don't look at me like that, I think you'll be laughing soon enough.

I know the idea of a love potion sounds boring, but bear with me. I think we'll all be having fun in a few chapters. At the expense of poor Hermione and Draco, but fun never the less. I guess this sort of spawned from writing way too much angst and the need for humor and laughs won.

As for what timeline this is taking place in. It takes place in sixth year with Slughorn, so HBP. However, there aren't any Horcruxes here and no Draco trying to bust in and no Ron/Lav to make Hermione jealous. Also, if you didn't catch it, Blaise is finally black as Rowling has deemed him and I just had him prewritten as white in all my other stories. So, yay!

If you like how the story is progressing so far, please do review! I'd love to hear your opinions! (And reviews always encourage me!)

As a note, I will be attempting to update this story every two weeks on a **Sunday **so stay tuned!


	2. Chapter Two

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Two**

The week passed much more quickly than Hermione had anticipated. Slughorn, true to his word, had managed to obtain nearly fifteen ounces of Antipodean Opaleye scales, which she had quickly crushed down.

During their next class, Slughorn laid down several more requirements for the assignment, which earned moans of protest from most of the students. To make sure they 'had an understanding' of what was being asked, besides providing a sample of the potion to him, they were to write down all of the ingredients and amounts used, as well as the process for making the potion. If you wanted to, you could include the antidote process for a few extra points.

Also, you weren't allowed to tell anyone what you were attempting to do with your love potion. Hermione looked guilty at that, having shared her goal for the potion with Harry and Ron, but both assured her they wouldn't say anything. The reasoning behind this, Slughorn explained, was so neither participant would 'act as they thought' and just fib the grade. Also, they would turn in all of the above things after the potions were tested, because he wanted both members to write a summary of what happened with each potion.

Friday was the last day in which to make their potions, and they would test them on Monday the next week. Many of the students were begging for a few more weeks to finish. Hermione had to admit, it was harder than it had originally seemed.

After all, it was a brand new potion. They couldn't use the book recipe and there was no way for them to know what it would look like when it was finished. Slughorn had assured them that if their potion ended up a 'dud' they would still receive a good grade _if _their written portion dealt with the basic components of a love potion and they just messed up when they tried to tweak it.

Humming, Hermione stirred her cauldron that was filled with the antidote. It was a lovely, dark purple, quite a contrast to the nearly shimmering cream potion she had created. But they looked nice together, especially since the love potion shimmered due to the mass amount of Antipodean Opaleye scales she had put into it, while the antidote glimmered faintly.

"How're the two of you doing?" she asked, dumping in bits of orange peel she had taken to try and make the antidote have a 'citrus' taste.

"I hate this," Ron muttered, poking at the dark sludge looking potion he had made with a stick. "It looks like Polyjuice… who in their right mind would even let me come near them with this stuff?"

"No one," Harry said, watching as the stick disintegrated in the bubbling brown mass. "Not if they valued having internal organs anyway."

"Thanks, mate. You're a real help," Ron said dryly, glaring at the light blue Harry's potion had ended up being. "You at least won't fail. Slughorn is going to take one look at this and give me a 'T'."

Hermione sighed. She had told them again and again she would not help them this time; they had to make something on their own. But Ron had tried. He really had. And if she left one of her friends to fail she would feel horrible.

"Here," she said, pulling the instructions he had written out towards her. "Instead of using the Bawlroot, try the honeysuckle extract. Bawlroots are used in calming potions, yes, but they also are a main ingredient used in the wizarding medical field to clean out the intestines."

"That's disgusting," Ron shuddered. "What's honeysuckle extract do?"

"Despite its name," she said, "it's not really sweet at all, but rather sour. But when added in large quantities and with a toadwart, it has the effect of creating a slight attraction. Generally attraction to flowers and mushrooms, but I'm sure you could think of something that could bring it back to more human tendencies, right?"

"Um… I don't suppose you want to tell me that too?" he asked hopefully, dumping the contents of his cauldron in the sink and rinsing it out, pointedly ignoring how the potion began to eat away at the stone.

She shook her head. "Here's a hint. Try looking in chapter three of this book," she said, hefting said book onto the table. "You'll find something."

"I won't have time to make the antidote though," Ron said, glancing at the clock and realizing he only had half an hour left.

"Just add some Fengri Mushrooms to the potion," she said. "It has the ability to cancel the affects of most love potions. If you think that isn't enough, subtract some of the main ingredient of your potion. That's about all I can say," she said. "Help any?"

"Yeah, loads! Thanks, Hermione. You're the bestest."

"I thought I was the 'bestest'," Harry said with a pout that threatened to turn into a huge grin any second.

"Bestest at many things, Harry," Hermione said, "But I still beat you when it comes to Potions. And, for the record, bestest isn't a word."

"Well, neither is funnest, and I still like to say that," Ron said. "Seriously, who says 'more fun' anyways?"

"I do," she said, taking a sample of her counter-potion and placing it in a square shaped beaker. "But you know, some of us try to speak with the correct grammar."

"Yeah, you and Malfoy," Harry said with a grin, and he and Ron both burst into laughter and said together, "But it's not like you can't use sophisticated language."

"You're never going to let that go, are you?" she asked, labeling the bottle with her neat cursive and placing it in the box with her two love potion samples (one for her partner to drink and one to turn in to Slughorn at the end) and written instructions.

"Nope," Ron grinned. "I think it's probably one of the only things you and Malfoy will ever agree on. And it was just too perfect of timing."

The witch just shook her head in resigned defeat and began to clean out her cauldron, in the other sink as the one Ron had used was nearly gone. She was sure Slughorn would manage to fix it later. When the bell chimed, everyone placed their potions in their cubbies in the back of the room to be picked up on Monday. Ron's potion was now a lovely shade of mint green and no longer destroying innocent objects, so he managed to nearly skip out of the class, content he wasn't about to kill someone.

Herbology was an easy lesson that day, as Professor Sprout had caught a nasty cold, and just had the students fertilizing some of the plants she gave to Pomfrey to make medicine with. Hermione was glad for the mundane chore, she had patrol later that night with Malfoy no less, and she needed the current peace of mind.

She knew that it would happen eventually. The heads tried to rotate the partners so that they could develop 'inter-house unity'. It was a good idea, really, but putting a Gryffindor with a Slytherin was just asking for bad news. Especially considering who the Slytherins and Gryffindors were.

Hermione could deal with Pansy. So could Ron. They both all just ignored each other and it went well. But add Malfoy into the equation and everything got ten times worse. Putting Malfoy and Ron together would be a death sentence… for which one, she wasn't sure, but someone would get terribly injured. Maybe both. And she couldn't stand the git, but as long as he kept his distance from her she could get through the night. Sadly, he seemed to take these patrols with her to call her every name in the book. Last year he had been slightly better, and only called her out when he was feeling particularly bored, but this year he had been downright horrible.

They'd only had two patrols together the whole year thus far, which was pretty good considering how few of them there were. But she really didn't want to have to deal with his remarks tonight. She always did her best to just ignore him and told herself she was the 'better person' for not being goaded into insulting on his level.

Although being told how many times she was inferior to him was a bit trying on even the most patient person.

"You all right there, Mione?" Harry asked quietly, noticing how she was gripping the edges of her pot and actually slightly fracturing the weak terra-cotta.

"I'm fine… Just… I wish I didn't have to patrol with Malfoy tonight."

"Want me to come with you?" he asked, concern sparkling in his emerald orbs.

"Thanks, Harry, but it's better if I go alone. He'd only deduct points and be even more of a prat than usual. It's nothing I can't handle anyways… and this'll be the last time I have to patrol with him before the winter holidays, so that's good."

"If he ever gives you any trouble you can tell me," Harry said. "I mean it, Hermione. If he ever…"

She smiled and gave her long time friend a hug, careful not to smear his back with dirt. "I know, Harry. Thank you."

"I wanna hug too!" Ron whined, not caring about getting dirt on them and making the embrace into a group hug. "So," he said after a few seconds. "Why are we hugging?"

Laughing, and in much better spirits than she had been previously, Hermione gave them both a tight squeeze and then went back to adding fertilizer to her plant, the knowledge that she'd have to wash her robes sooner than planned not bothering her in the least.

xxx

Eight o'clock struck much sooner than Hermione would have liked. With a resigned sigh, she put down the Ancient Runes textbook and shrugged on her robe. "I'll see you later," she said to her two roommates, grabbing her wand and heading to her destination point.

"Have fun," Lavender called after her.

"Even if he is a prat, he's still good-looking!" Parvati said, looking up from her romance novel.

Shaking her head, Hermione closed the door softly behind her and within minutes found herself standing outside the Great Hall doors and looking for Malfoy.

"You should make an effort to be on time," she said after Malfoy emerged from the shadows a little while later. "It's nearly eight-fifteen now."

"Keep your knickers on, Mudblood," he scowled. "Unlike you, I have important matters that need attending to. Well, aren't you coming?" he asked, already starting down the hall.

Willing herself not to hex him and just pretend she'd found him like that, she followed him down the hall, staying several steps behind.

"_Only three hours," _she chanted to herself, _"Only till eleven. I can deal with Malfoy for that long."_

"Hurry up, Mudblood," he said waiting impatiently at the junction of their hallway. "It's not right to keep your superiors waiting."

"For one thing, Malfoy, you are not my superior in any way. Unless of course we're referring to pratiness, you win hands down," she said, inwardly cursing herself for letting herself get pulled into the argument. "And second, do _not _call me that foul word. I'm trying to treat with you with as much respect as I can possibly muster and you don't even try."

"You do not get to tell me what to do," he snarled, his nose nearly touching hers.

"And why should I listen to you? Because you're a high and mighty Pureblood?" she bit back. "Because your family has killed hundreds of innocent people? Because you're a Death Eater and-"

The sound of his hand connecting with her face resonated down the hall. Surprised, Hermione took a step back and touched her stinging cheek.

"Do not assume what you don't know," he hissed, anger smoldering like a storm in his eyes.

"I'll assume whatever I damn well please, Malfoy, as you've done nothing to prove me wrong," she said, lowering her hand and gripping her wand tightly. "I have tried," she said, voice low and dangerous, "to understand you and why you're such a bleeder and git… to see if there was more to it than what you appeared. But you have hurt me, you have hurt my friends, and I'm so bloody sick of trying to be the better person."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," he growled, "and don't even try to understand me, you horrible Mudblood bitch."

"Then explain it to me," she said, currents of anger running through her voice. "Tell me so I understand, Malfoy."

"I don't have to explain myself to anyone, and most especially you."

Turning, he stalked down the hall in the direction they had just come from.

"Where do you think you're going? We have patrol!" she called after him, still highly strung but duty called first.

"If you care so bloody much, do it yourself. I'm done with this."

Fuming, Hermione stared at the corner where he had turned. Her heartbeat gradually slowed until the anger she had felt so strongly seemed to drain right out of her. "I'll write him up tomorrow," she muttered, massaging her forehead, already feeling the impending headache. "And I guess I'll just finish this on my own."

The rest of the three hour shift was uneventful, which was good because she would be hard-pressed to explain why she had a handprint imprinted on her face and she didn't feel like having to do anything that night.

She nearly tumbled into bed when she got back, the headache now in its full glory, and pulled the covers up over her head. The weekend was here, that meant she had time to do her homework, relax, and go to the Quidditch game on Sunday for Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw. Now if only the elephants would stop dancing on her head and let her go to sleep!

xxx

She awoke the next morning to hushed whispers above her. That in itself wasn't uncommon, Parvati and Lavender often whispered to one another when Hermione was trying to sleep due to the fact she was an 'early to bed, early to rise' sort of person. But when the voices were _right above her_ she figured something was out of the ordinary.

Prying open her eyes, she squinted blearily up at her fellow Gryffindors, both of them hovering over her face. "Is something wrong?" she asked, tongue thick in her mouth.

"What happened?" Parvati asked, as Hermione picked up the glass of water from her bedside cabinet and took a long, refreshing gulp, and then winced.

"Oh, this?" she asked, pointing at the handprint, that had now turned a light shade of purplish blue.

"No, we meant your hair," Lavender said, seating herself on the foot of Hermione's bed. "That looks like a handprint."

"…does it?" she asked, frantically wracking her brain to get out of this situation. She wouldn't mind writing Malfoy up in the least, but if Harry or Ron found out they'd go Malfoy hunting and the wretched little ferret would end up in the Hospital Wing and her boys would probably be in trouble as well.

"Don't go trying to hide something like that… it's written all over your face, literally I might add," Parvati said. "Now, what happened?"

"Malfoy," she sighed, realizing resisting was futile. Especially since the stupid mark looked so much like a hand print. Seriously, how hard had he hit her? "He was being his usual bigoted self and ended up hitting me when I pushed him too far I guess."

"That gives him no right," Lavender huffed. "Did you report it yet?"

"I'm going to this morning. But… as much as I hate Malfoy, I don't want to see him killed by Harry and Ron," she said, cracking a wry grin. "And I don't know how I'm going to keep this from them. As you said, it's pretty obvious."

"I have some concealing powder," Parvati said, rushing over to their shared vanity (but it was more for the two of them, Hermione never went near it) and coming back with a small case of white powder. "I use it when I get a zit," she said, patting some lightly over Hermione's cheek.

"Thanks," she said with a smile. "Now, just to take some painkillers so I don't keel over and off to report this I go. What time is it anyway?" she asked, Lavender blocking her view to the clock.

"Just past nine," the brown haired girl said.

Hermione shrieked. "How is it so late? I can't have slept that long!"

"Relax," Parvati said, twining her fingers through her long hair to form it into a plait. "You can sleep in every once in a while. Besides, you obviously had a long night so you deserve a break."

"If you say so," she sighed, yanking on a pair of tan trousers and pulling a red fleece jacket over her white shirt. "You two want to come get breakfast with me?"

xxx

The rest of the day did end up being more of a 'break' than the actual work Hermione had planned. She had visited the Prefect office and left a detailed report of the incident, stressing most importantly that Malfoy had left their shift and made her do it by herself. Not only was it unfair, it was dangerous in case something did pop up and she was unable to solve it alone.

From there, Parvati and Lavender had dragged her off to meet with Padma and Ginny, and they had spent a good portion of the day walking idly around the courtyards outside and playing a game of cards, despite Hermione's protests they really should be getting ahead in homework. Ginny had had to leave early to go to a Quidditch session, but even Hermione had to admit that 'hanging with the girls' was fun since it almost never happened.

Dinner was a wild affair, as it was the pre-Quidditch hype and many people were already waving banners and preparing for the upcoming match. She could only imagine how much louder it would be if the match were against Slytherin.

"Where were you today?" Ron asked, dropping onto the bench next to Hermione, who had her chin propped up in her hand. "Harry and I couldn't find you anywhere."

"Spending time with some of my girlfriends," she said. "I haven't really done anything with them in a while. Besides, you and Harry were probably doing Quidditch stuff all day, am I right?"

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "I guess we wouldn't have been much fun anyways."

"Where's Harry?" she asked, glancing around the crowded hall but catching no sight of her bespectacled friend. "Didn't he come down with you?"

"He told me to go ahead; he was packing up after our team meeting," Ron said, shoveling mashed potatoes in his mouth.

Harry had taken over the spot of team captain, and had been doing a lot better than Hermione had anticipated, in terms of organization that is. She was glad he'd found something to occupy more of his time, it prevented him from having as many nightmares because he was always so busy and exhausted.

"Hey, what's on your face?" Ron asked, staring curiously at her cheek where Malfoy had slapped her. "There's like something blue…"

"Oh," she exclaimed, placing her hand over it. "Must be some stray make-up or something. Lavender was trying to give me a makeover," she said laughing nervously. "I'll go clean it up, be right back."

Ron caught her wrist as she started to rise. "I'm not stupid, Mione," he said, pulling her back down next to him. "What is it? I know Lavender would never be that horrible with make-up- she wears it all the time! Now let me see."

He took one of the heavy linen napkins and dumped some water from his goblet over it and began to rub lightly at her face, the powder coming off and sticking to the napkin.

"Oh, Mione," he murmured, not at first noticing the fingerprints spreading away from it. "What happened?"

"Um… well, on patrol last night I-"

"Is that a handprint?" he exclaimed, finally noticing it.

"-fell down the stairs," she finished pathetically. "Caught me red handed," she said miserably, gingerly touching it and wincing.

"Who did this?" he demanded, blue eyes sparkling with rage. "Malfoy did this, didn't he?"

Her silence answered his question. "Please Ron," she said, grabbing him by the wrist now. "Don't do anything that'll get you in trouble. I'm fine, it'll be all better in a few days."

"He is not going to get away with this," he growled. "How dare he…? I wish we were playing Slytherin tomorrow; I'd smash a bloody bludger right into his ugly face."

"I already reported it," she said, yanking him back onto the bench. "The Heads will deal with him."

"He hurt you, Hermione," Ron said, his gaze locking with hers. "You can't just let it go."

She sighed. "No good will come from it. I guess I can call it even from when I slapped him a few years ago. Although I don't think I hit as hard," she said, catching her reflection in her glass. "I'm going to go cover it up again," she said, rising to her feet. "I'll see you and Harry later tonight, all right? And please Ron, don't go and do anything stupid. You have the Quidditch match tomorrow."

xxx

"Sheesh, Draco, you really hit her hard," Zabini commented, watching as the Gryffindor girl hurried from the hall and out after being confronted by Weasley.

"She deserved it," he replied sullenly, stirring his soup.

"I think you deserve to get knocked upside the head a lot and you don't see me hitting you," the black boy said, staring at his pale friend.

"Well, she should mind her own business," he snapped, glaring at her retreating figure.

"Hey," Blaise said, rapping Draco on the hand with his spoon. "I don't know what she said to you, but it's no excuse to hit her. You're lucky Weasley and Potter haven't pummeled you yet."

"She's a Mudblood, Blaise. She deserves more than just a slap in the face."

"She's a person, just like you or me. She-"

"She is lower than us," he hissed. "Her blood is dirty. Her kind deserves to be wiped out."

"Killed. That's what you mean, isn't it?" Blaise asked, staring sternly. "Look, Draco, we've been friends since I can remember. I don't want to watch you go down this path."

"What path? The one you're not taking, you mean?" he glared.

"Just because I'm a so-called Pureblood does not mean I think less of others who aren't. I don't think anyone, anyone, deserves to be killed because of their lineage. And the people that think that are narrow-minded idiots who have never decided anything on their own."

"Shut it Blaise, before I-"

"You'll what? Slap me like you did Granger? Tattletale to Daddy dearest that Zabini refuses to kill lots of people? You'll what, Draco?"

Draco glared at him in stony silence. "I walk on the path that our families have done for generations. I refuse to be swayed from it because you can't take the idea of killing someone."

"Do you think you'd even have the guts?" Blaise countered. "Huh, Draco? Could you look someone in the eyes and just kill them like that? Think you could kill Granger?"

"Only too easily," the blond said, voice trembling with anger.

"You're walking to your death," Blaise said, venom in his words. "You're going to die because of this blatant disregard to listen to reason. And don't expect me to follow you. I've done that for years, and now I've finally found my own path. I'm not going to be dragged down on yours."

"Then I wish you the best luck in not getting killed, Mudblood lover," Draco spat, kicking his feet over the bench and standing up. "I'd watch your back, Zabini. I'm not doing it for you anymore."

Blaise stared after his friend as he stormed from the hall in the opposite direction Hermione had gone.

There. He'd said it. He had been trying to work up the courage to share his own views with Draco for some time. He just wished it had gone differently. Thankfully though, their voices had been soft despite the anger in their words, and no one had been the wiser.

No one except the large figure that had been lurking a few paces down, pretending to chat to a fifth year student about his Potions essay he was writing. He hadn't survived for so long by being ignorant. And he wouldn't let one of the brightest students he'd ever had walk down a road that would kill him.

Finishing up his conversation, he made his way towards his original destination, walrus-like moustache nearly grinning itself as an idea brewed in his mind.

Blaise sighed again and drank some of his soup. Draco had really made up his mind, and nothing, not even a long time best-friend, was going to get through to him.

Only Fate could change his path now. And Fate had better be thinking of something. Or perhaps it just needed a little nudge from a well-meaning bystander. For even Fate couldn't resist the charms of H.E.F. Slughorn.

**Author's Notes:**

Yes, don't panic, this story is still romance/humor. We just haven't gotten there yet. Be patient :P Let me tell you though, writing evil!Draco isn't fun. I just want to cuddle him. But Blaise is level-headed as he always is in my fics and hopefully something will happen soon.

I've also been working on my British wording; did you see all the ones I had? :smile: Trying my best to make this more in the English world that my U.S. one xD Pants will forever be trousers now xD Although, can you still say 'jeans'? And what about pajama pants? Or sweatpants? Are those all right?

I'd like to thank the following lovelies for their reviews: LishaChan, PearsnOranges, xxXPixie LightsXxx, Hunny Nut Cheerio, The Other Perspective, Slytherin-Girl 15, Smile 4 the Camera, Smiley12341, Jimmi08, Heavenly Cupcake Frosting, ShelbySarleslovesWWE4EVER, voldyismyfather, HM, Ghost Whispererrrrr, coffeentoffee, LilPadfootChicky, Pirates16103, tetee, Blue-Knight 10, MokubaDoll, Savannah, BlueBabyAquaGirl, DramioneDreamer, TaterTotLuverm, Stormy-Star-Gazer, and MilkyWayNut

You guys all make the hours of writing worth it! Thank you!

And the review(s) that made my day: **The Other Perspective** really made me crack-up with her wonderful use of a double negative. I love laughing too everyone, feel free to make jokes! Who knows, maybe they'll even end up in the story…

And **Stormy-Star-Gazer **totally made me feel loved. Thank you so much for your heartfelt review and I'm so glad you're a Ron/Pansy fan! There's more of them than I thought! So here's your update you asked for, in your inbox, on a lovely Sunday afternoon.

And I know there are a ton of you lurking/alerting/favoriting this fic while I love you all so much and appreciate that you took the time to read my story, I would love love love it even more if you guys could review. That really keeps me motivated and wanting to write for y'all.

On that note, see you guys in two weeks and GO BEARS! If you're a Bears fan, feel free to give me a shoutout! If you're Packers, best of luck. I really do like Aaron Rodgers.

PS: There's a poll on my profile that **may** have an effect on this story. Please vote. Thank you.

_Updated on: January, 23, 2011_


	3. Chapter Three

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Three**

As she had expected, Ron had told Harry. Strangely enough, it was Harry who had to be held back screaming bloody murder about how he was going to kill Malfoy. Ron was normally the one to fly off the handle like that, but Harry had been under a lot of pressure, attempting to do Occlumency lessons with Snape again, and little things set him off.

The bruise was already starting to fade by the time Monday rolled around. Well, fade wouldn't be the right word. Turning yellow and dark red would be better, but at least the swelling that had appeared later on in the day on Saturday had gone down drastically.

Gryffindor had won the Quidditch match on Sunday and a late night party had followed after. It had been an insanely close match, Cho Chang having almost swiped the Snitch out from underneath Harry's nose several times. But in the end, red and gold prevailed, mostly thanks to Ron's goalkeeping that had vastly improved from last year.

A hearty round of "Weasley is our King" was being sung throughout the common room, much to the red head's delight. Hermione sat in one of the armchairs, nursing a bottle of warm butterbeer and listening as Ginny animatedly described how she had gotten the quaffle past the Ravenclaw's keeper.

By the time eleven rolled around, Hermione was exhausted and after excusing herself from the party, she made her way upstairs and climbed in to bed. A little later, she heard Parvati and Lavender creep in, and then there was blessed silence, where she prayed to anyone who might be listening to not be paired with Malfoy tomorrow.

No one knew that Fate liked to joke. Poor, poor Hermione.

xxx

Down in the dungeons, a portly man was having his own celebration of sorts. He knew he had said random picking… and he did hate himself for lying, but short of forcing the Malfoy boy to kill someone (which was a decidedly morbid thought) to see his mistakes, this was the next best bet, since he clearly wouldn't listen to reason. And his dear Hermione would just have to suffer through it. Of course though, things always had a way of turning around and perhaps this would work for her best interests too.

He picked up the bowler hat he had filled with scraps of parchment that had names written on them. Names of his sixth year Potion students, in fact. It had been random picking; whoever he called to the front picked out a name and so long as that person wasn't of the same gender (even he wasn't that mean) they would be paired together.

That still worked for the most part. But… he riffled through it until he found 'Draco Malfoy' and 'Hermione Granger'. And with a few muttered words, he cast a linking charm on the both of them and threw them back in the basket. Let them think it was random still, it would work in his best interests if they never knew. Because if they did then he was sure his plan would fail.

The first step done, he crossed to the back of the room and scanned the shelves, looking for the cubbyhole with Hermione's potion. He really would have to thank the girl when this was all over. It was because she had made a brilliant potion, which he was certain would work, and he knew of it that this plan had a high success rate.

Pulling the tray out, he admired how everything was all neatly arranged, with a blank sheet of parchment in it as well for the documentation of the potion's effects. Carefully, he uncorked the counter-potion and poured it into a different vial that he then tucked into his waistcoat pocket.

Into the original bottle he poured in grape juice, nearly a perfect color match to the antidote. After adding in a few edible glitter sparkles so it would appear glittery like the original had, he put the cork back in it and placed the tray back exactly as it was. No one would be the wiser.

xxx

As soon as the sunlight filtered into the room, Hermione wished she could rewind time back to Friday. Even if it involved getting slapped again. She'd had horrible nightmares where she had been Malfoy's partner and had been making goo-goo eyes at him and he had responded in kind. That had been where she woke up.

"Do you think we should get dressed up?" she heard Lavender asking, applying a heavy coat of mascara.

"Why bother?" Parvati replied. "The guys are going to be going crazy in love anyway. Won't matter if you wear anything special. Although, don't wear any button shirts."

"Buttons? Why?"

"Just in case there are a few more… you know, aggressive love potions out there."

Hermione moaned as both girls burst into giggles and pulled the blankets over her head. "I'm sick," she said, "and you can tell Slughorn I'm very sorry but I was too ill to get out of bed."

"Aww, how come?" Parvati said, prancing over and yanking the covers off, the freezing cold air biting Hermione's bear skin.

"Yeah, seriously, what's up?" Lavender asked, handing the girl's robe to her. "We get to get fawned over. And I don't know about you, but most of the guys, except for Crabbe and Goyle, are pretty hot."

"What if we get one of them?" Parvati asked eyes wide in horror, as that possibility just occurred to her.

"Run screaming from the room?"

"Good plan."

"Because," Hermione said, pulling her robe close around her. "There's a thing called Malfoy there, and I swear somehow, one way or another, I'm going to get him as my partner."

"Don't say that," Lavender said. "I'm sure if you explain to Slughorn he won't make you partner with him. He does like you, you know. You're a part of the "Slug Club", remember? He's gotta be able to do something so you don't get Malfoy."

"You're right," Hermione said, spirits lifted. "I'll just go talk to him I know he said he wouldn't switch, but he might make an exception. He knows Malfoy and I don't get along."

Feeling better already, Hermione took a quick shower, re-applied some of Parvati's concealing powder, ran down to the Great Hall for a quick bite and then flew towards the dungeons.

She was in luck, Slughorn was there even though class didn't start for another half hour. "Professor!" she exclaimed, dropping her bag on the table with a loud thud.

"Oh, Hermione. What brings you here so early?" he asked, putting aside his grading pen he had been using to mark up another class's homework.

"I know you said that whoever we got paired with was final, Professor. And I respect that, but I'd really like to make a request."

"Oh?"

"I would really, really prefer to not be paired with Malfoy. We don't get along and a few things happened over the weekend that… I just can't be near him right now."

"As dear as you are to me, Hermione," Slughorn said, "I can't make special allowances." That was certainly the pot calling the kettle black. "If it would make you feel better, all of the names are going to be drawn randomly from this hat," he said, gesturing. "So it's highly improbable you'll even get partnered with Malfoy. But if you do, it's only for a few minutes, right?"

"Right," she sighed, her expression downcast. Slughorn felt a twinge of guilt for making one of his favorite students so miserable, but he squashed it as quickly as it appeared. It was for the greater good. At least he hoped it was. And if it didn't work out… well, he would buy Hermione all the books she could carry back home.

The Gryffindor made her way to her seat and withdrew the Ancient Runes book she'd been reading for the last few days in an attempt to calm her nerves. A few minutes before class officially started, she got up again and retrieved her love potion tray.

Frowning slightly, she looked at the antidote. Did it look a little more washed out? Maybe just from sitting in the vial had done that; condensation was probable around the dungeon in this colder weather. Oh well, it was fine.

"What'd he say?" Lavender asked, slipping into her seat behind Hermione.

"That he couldn't make special amends," she sighed. "But it really is random; we're drawing slips of paper out of a hat. So it is highly unlikely. I just have this weird feeling. And," she said, lowering her voice, "it'd be pretty awkward to get Harry or Ron too. They're like my brothers… it would just be wrong."

Lavender chuckled. "Well… would it be better than Malfoy?"

"I honestly can't say. It'd be a lot easier, but I'd be way more embarrassed than if it were Malfoy."

"It'll all work out," she comforted. "Just hope you don't get Crabbe or Goyle."

"You've cut out half of the boys for me now," Hermione snorted.

No further comment could be added as Slughorn cleared his throat and beamed at the class. "I'm so glad all of you came… it would have been a real shame to miss this class. And your grade would look pretty dismal too," he added.

"Now, I said random drawing would happen so random it shall be. I have all of your names in this bowler hat. I will draw one and call out your name. That student is then to come up and draw another name. Whoever I call out will be the first in the group to take the love potion.

"There is a time limit. Each potion has five minutes to work before you are to administer the antidote. Unless, of course, the effects are very clear and you don't wish to receive the attention of your partner anymore. I have also decided, after much consideration, that we'll be doing boy/girl pairings. As amusing as it would be, I feel as though many of you would find it even more uncomfortable than necessary. And fortunately, we have nine gentleman and nine ladies so dividing won't be a problem.

"After each antidote is administered, you will both write an account of what happened and turn it in with the partner's potion that was used. I trust you will all be adults about this and have a fun time. Now then, everyone go get your potions and sit back down. I'll call the first name. Once you have your partner, sit next to each other, but don't start the experiment until everyone has their partner. Everyone ready? Okay, first up… Pansy Parkinson!"

The Slytherin girl rose and glanced warily at the bowler hat, as if expecting it to bite her. At Slughorn's encouraging nod, the dark haired beauty reached her hand it and pulled out a slip. Unfurling it as slow as she could, her brown eyes widened as she read the name written neatly in the middle.

"W-Weasley," she managed to gasp out, looking disgusted and highly affronted. Ron didn't look too much better, staring blankly at her, even as Harry nudged him to get moving.

"Lovely," Slughorn said with a grin. "Now, can I call… Seamus Finnigan to the stage."

The Irish boy was a bit quicker than Pansy up to the stage and grabbed the first name he touched. "Lavender," he said, relief evident in his voice. The two of them had been dates for the Yule Ball after all, so it wasn't the end of the world. Lavender looked happy too; no Crabbe or Goyle for her.

"Riley Lee," he called out, and a Slytherin girl stood. Not much was known about her; she was awfully quiet and didn't tend to hang out with her fellow Slytherins but rather with the Ravenclaws.

She silently picked a name and then said quietly, "Dean Thomas."

The rest of them paired off relatively quickly after the first few. Neville went with Tracey Davis, a half-blood in a den of Purebloods so they all knew he'd be all right. Parvati cried as she drew Crabbe and had to be dragged back into the room by her partner.

There were only four guys left now, including Malfoy and Harry to Hermione's chagrin. In fact, she would really prefer to only go with Zabini at that point; he seemed like a pretty decent bloke considering he was friends with Malfoy.

Goyle was drawn next and picked the other Slytherin girl Hermione knew nothing about. And then, ever happy, Slughorn called, "Hermione Granger. Let's see who you get."

"_Please, please, please," _she prayed, walking to the front like someone headed for the executioner's block, _"Let me get Zabini."_

Hands shaking despite her best efforts to quell them, Hermione put her hand in the hat. And then, taking a deep breath, she pulled one out. Heart going a mile a minute she unfolded it.

Oh curses, there was no god. "Malfoy," she muttered, crumpling the slip in her hand and wishing she could do the same to his head. She caught Lavender and Parvati's sympathetic gazes and the angry glare Ron gave Malfoy. Mechanically, she picked up her tray and sat next to him, looking everywhere and anywhere but his face.

Blaise drew Daphne Greengrass which left Harry with Millicent Bulstrode. "Excellent," Slughorn said, clapping his hands. "Well then, time for the first potion to be downed. Remember, no telling your partner about what its intended affects are. You have five minutes maximum until you must administer the antidote. Ready…set…go…"

"I hate you," Hermione hissed, taking the peach colored potion from Draco's tray. "And whatever you're going to make me do with this thing is only going to make it worse."

"You think I like this?" he asked, eyes narrowed at her. "Get real, Mudblood."

"Shut it," she growled, and then tipped the potion back in one gulp. Here went nothing…

xxx

The students could have sworn Slughorn had said that the potion he picked wouldn't cause too many disturbances. In fact, they could quote what he'd said, laughing about their fates. It went something along the lines of:

"_And lastly, I'm deciding on the type of potion you'll be brewing. If I left it as a free-for-all I think things could get rather ugly," he laughed. "So, I've decided on a potion that hopefully won't cause too many disturbances in the class."_

A free-for-all get ugly? Oh no… there were many things that could be uglier. And giving the students love potions that no one knew what they would do would be listed easily in the top five things to never do. And Slughorn had broken that rule.

But he wasn't paying. Oh no. He was having one of the best times of his life, sitting safely at his desk with a shield charm erected around just in case. They were so right when they said one could find pleasure in another's pain. So right indeed.

xxx

Ron watched nervously as Pansy drank his potion. When she didn't start crying about her insides being eaten alive, he figured he could relax and know he hadn't killed her. But when a predatory gleam entered her eye he realized something had went very, very wrong.

He had taken Hermione's advice about the Honeysuckle extract, and after some serious thinking on his part, he had come up with a way to apply it towards humans. Well, more specifically redheaded humans. At least he hoped that would work. Seeing as he was the only redhead in the class, he figured it would work pretty well.

So, like how the Polyjuice potion used a part of someone to complete the transformation, he had added in a few of his own ginger roots. He hadn't any idea how to make the potion make someone like a human, other than dumping a body in there, so the hair would have to be enough. Besides, it was quite a creative idea, he liked to think.

Now though, it wasn't looking like one of his brightest ideas.

Pansy's eyes had immediately traveled to his head. "Umm, Parkinson?" he asked, waving his hand in front of her face. "You okay?"

A low growl worked its way up her throat and he took a step back. It hadn't sounded like an angry growl. But more of… like she was trying to seduce him. "You really have to say something now," he said, beginning to wonder if he'd killed her brain cells. "Please tell me you're all right…"

With a definite seductive growl, she launched herself at him and Ron, eeping in terror, went backwards and promptly tripped over a cauldron. She promptly latched herself onto him, arms twining about his neck and her knees pressing on either side of him. He could almost feel his ears going red.

She nuzzled her face against his head, and then began to run her fingers through his hair, Ron lying perfectly still beneath her. She sniffed her hair and gave a murmur of approval, most likely his shampoo, and then proceeded to knead it between her fingers and plant kisses over his head.

"Breathe," Ron muttered to himself. "She's only playing with your hair… you'll live. This isn't traumatizing."

It's always wise to never jinx oneself. Because the next second Ron felt a sudden, sharp jerk on his head. Rolling his eyes backwards, his mouth dropped in alarm. She had a wad of his hair in her mouth and was chewing on it, seemingly not disgusted in the least.

"AHHHHHHH! STOP EATING MY HAIR! GEROFF! GEROFF! PARKINSON! STOP! AHHHHH!"

xxx

"Did I ever tell thee that thou art they most lovely maiden I have ever lain eyes on?" Neville asked, kneeling before Tracey. "Thy hair shines like the golden rays of the morning sun! Thy eyes sparkle like a thousand sapphires amidst a starry night!"

"What about my lips?" she asked, brushing them lightly over his cheek in a butterfly kiss.

"Oh, sweet maiden, thou have lips as soft as the velvet of a rose, and as luscious as sweet, sweet chocolate. Thine smile pales in comparison to the radiance of the silver moon."

Tracey grinned roguishly. She had always been a fan of darker literature and Shakespeare had fit right into there. What she came to love most through reading them was the language. It was just so romantic. So when she was told to make a love potion, she had done her best to enrapture her partner and let them spout off words from Elizabethan times.

"Thou beauty has no bounds, oh fair goddess."

Oh yes, she liked this.

xxx

It was a dud. A blessed, blessed dud. Parvati smirked at Crabbe. She was free! She wasn't going to fawn over him or praise his stupidity. She was freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

"Aren't you going to kiss me now?" he asked, staring at the strange girl who was humming and braiding stray strands of hair.

"Definitely not."

"But my potion-"

"Didn't work. Which means I'm not obligated to do anything. I will sit here and braid my hair and then write up my report that nothing happened."

"But-"

"No buts, Crabbe," she said, wagging a finger in his face. "If you'd wanted a kiss, you should have made the potion correctly."

He glowered. And then decided that he'd use what he'd always been good at. "Kiss me now," he growled.

"PROFESSOR!" Parvati screeched, as Crabbe bodily picked her up and held her in front of him. "PROFESSOR!"

"I WILL SAVE YOU, DAMSEL IN DISTRESS!" came a heroic battle cry from across the room.

Parvati craned her neck around, trying to avoid Crabbe's lips, and all she saw was a head of black hair before she was whisked from Crabbe's arms.

Harry held her, striking a valiant pose as he landed atop one of the tables. Parvati almost expected a theme song of some sort to begin playing, as his robe, tied like a cape around his neck, blew out on an invisible breeze.

"Are you all right?" he asked, setting her gently back on her feet

"Y-yeah. Thanks, Harry."

"I am only doing my heroic duty," He said, bowing and flipping his 'cape'. A second later, he was yanked down off the table by his ear by an irate Millicent.

"I am the damsel in distress," she scowled. "The purpose was for you to fawn over me, not go rescuing everyone."

"Hark!" he cried, pointing across the room. "Another D.I.D.!"

"I think Weasley is the one who's the D.I.D.," the Slytherin said, dragging Harry in the opposite direction. "Pansy is certainly not a damsel and so not in distress."

xxx

Hermione blinked, and then focused in on the blond in front of her. He was glaring at her and she blinked again. Why did such a handsome young man have such a scowl on his face? She'd have to fix that.

"Hey there," she whispered, walking forth with a definite sway of her hips she normally didn't use. "Why you looking so down, good-looking?"

Draco grinned devilishly. When he'd first heard love potion, brain-washing came first to mind. After all, why would he want to deal with someone who would pick at his flaws? He would rather have someone who only noticed the good qualities.

Besides, now he got cooed over by a girl he could pretend wasn't Granger, because she certainly wasn't acting like the Mudblood, and she would be mortified when she came out of it.

"Let me try and cheer you up," she said, purring in his ear. She settled herself on his lap, straddling the back of the chair. "Would a little kiss help?"

"Maybe," he said, smirking as her nose bumped into his and she nuzzled against it.

"Aren't you the lucky one then," she said, licking the outer shell of his earlobe and sending tingles through him. "Can't have a devilishly sexy guy like you not get what you see, right?"

Her hands went into his scalp and began to knead gently, a contented smile spreading across his face. Tired with that, she deftly unbuttoned the top of his shirt and began to trail hot kisses down his collarbone, nipping lightly at the flesh.

"Do you like it like this?" she breathed against him.

"Mhmm," he said, gripping her by the shoulders to hold her on as she leaned forward again, alarm bells going off in his head that this _was _still a Mudblood even if she didn't act like one.

"HEY! WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO HERMIONE!"

Both looked up at the intruding voice, Draco with contempt and Hermione with interest, that slowly turned into a lust. "Oh my, aren't you a handsome boy too," she said, sidling up to the redhead, Pansy still sucking the hair on the back of his head. "Would you like a kiss too? There's more than enough to go around," she whispered, her lips lightly brushing over his cheek.

"H-hey," Ron said, catching her by the wrists and holding her away from him. "Mione, cut that out." On a whole different level he turned to the Slytherin and snarled, "Give me that bloody antidote now or may Merlin help you."

"I would have thought you liked the attention, Weasel," Malfoy said, "You'll probably never get it anywhere else."

"Just shut it Malfoy and give it to me," he hissed.

"Come get it yourself," he said, gesturing to the table. "If you can, with that thing attached to your hair."

Scowling, Ron pushed forward, wincing as Pansy pulled out more of his hair, and doing his best to keep Hermione from doing anything else that would humiliate her when she got out of this.

"Mione," he said, plucking a small vial out of Malfoy's tray, "would you drink this for me?"

"Anything for you, gorgeous," she murmured, taking it and swallowing it in a dainty sip. Seconds later, she backpedaled, her face flaming red. "Oh my god. Oh my god. What did I just…?" Her eyes lighted on Malfoy. The source of her problems. Her humiliation. "You are so dead you ferret!" she snarled, before leaping at him.

Ron was all set to watch Hermione pummel Malfoy (and would gladly have helped if he wasn't in danger of getting a bald spot from fast, sudden movements) when Slughorn stepped in, his size preventing either from seeing the other.

"Now now," he said, placing a hand on Hermione's shoulder. "There's nothing to get angry about."

"NOTHING TO GET ANGRY ABOUT?" she shrieked, "NOTHING TO GET ANGRY ABOUT?"

"It was part of the lesson," Slughorn said, in his best placating voice. "And nothing that horrible happened."

"He… I…." she stuttered, unable to speak due to her rage. "I almost kissed him!"

"Almost is the key word, my dear," Slughorn said. "Although you certainly did a number on his neck."

"This… he… ARGH!" she screamed in a very un-Hermione like fashion and stormed from the room, dungeon door slamming shut behind her.

"Hark! A D.I.D.!" Harry cried and immediately took off after her, Millicent screaming at him to get back right this instant.

"Professor?" Ron asked, tugging on Slughorn's sleeve. "I know it hasn't been five minutes yet, but can you somehow please give Pansy the antidote? I'm going to be bald at this rate."

It had in fact only been three minutes. And they had never seemed longer.

"In one moment, Mr. Weasley," Slughorn said. Turning to Draco he said, "While I admire how thorough your potion was, Mr. Malfoy, what you allowed Miss Granger to do was highly inappropriate. I hope that next time you'll have the decency to halt her."

"Yes, Sir," Draco muttered, slightly upset at himself as well (not that he would ever tell anyone). He was a Pureblood and he had just let a Mudblood do that. But when Granger wasn't acting like her usual Mudblood self, it was difficult to remember. It wasn't the end of the world though, not like they had done anything too serious.

"Professor," Ron whined, tears pricking at his eyes as Pansy tore out a small bunch.

"Here," Parvati said, having seen the problem and gone to get the antidote. "It's supposed to be orange, right?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "I dunno how you're going to get her to drink it though… my hair seems to be the only thing on the menu."

"I think you're about to lose some more hair, my boy," Slughorn said as the first and last warning. With a strength they didn't know the tubby man possessed, he yanked Pansy from Ron's head, the latter screaming in pain as his hair went with. Parvati jumped in and as Pansy yelled in anger from being ripped away from her prize, she dumped the potion in.

Seconds later, the Slytherin girl started hacking and yanking hair from her mouth. "Oh Merlin! That was disgusting! Oh my! Your hair, Weasley?"

"I think you should be apologizing to him," Parvati said, looking at the bald spot on the back right of her fellow Gryffindor's head, as well as the grazed patches here and there.

"Ow…." Ron moaned, kneeling where he had been shoved. "Am I bleeding?"

Pansy's eyes softened ever so slightly. He may have been a Weasley, but she had just ripped out his hair. And she knew how much it hurt when a few strands got yanked, imagining patches was unbelievable. "I'm sorry, Weasley," she said, kneeling down next to him. "It's technically your own fault, but I'm sorry for yanking your hair out."

"'s okay," he mumbled, furiously wiping at the tears that had leaked out of his eyes from the sudden pain.

"No, it's not. Come on, I'll bring you to the Hospital Wing. Madam Pomfrey's got to have something to help."

"Sounds like an excellent idea," Slughorn said, mentally congratulating himself on his inter-house unity skills, despite the fact he didn't even know they would happen. To the rest of the class he announced, "All right, five minutes are up. Please administer the antidote. We'll take about a twenty minute recess for you to write down your findings."

"Professor, we have a problem," Millicent said once everyone had been brought back to normal. "Potter took off after Granger."

"Oh, we do need them, don't we?" he chuckled.

"That's not the problem, Sir. He's still under the potion."

"And what did yours do again?"

"Well," she said, "It makes him go after every 'damsel in distress' as he coins it. And… well, there have to be plenty of students in the halls since not everyone has class at eight in the morning. And Potter will probably see problems where there are none…"

"And with Harry's newfound hero complex, already on top of the one he had originally," Dean said slowly.

"Oh bloody hell," Ron muttered, still nursing his head.

And, as if on cue, they heard echoing down the dungeon steps and into the room through the door Harry had left open in his wake, "Hark! Another D.I.D.!"

"Class is postponed until we manage to get Mr. Potter back here, as well as Miss Granger," Slughorn said. "Everyone, spread out! We haven't a moment to lose!"

They really hadn't. Because even as they all went up the stairs, they could hear "Hark!" being echoed all over the place. And then they came upon a scene that they wished they could turn and run from (but it was, sadly, their moral responsibility to prevent the murder of the one who could defeat Voldemort).

Harry had 'saved' Snape from the stampede of first years in the Great Hall as they all left breakfast. Somehow, he had mistaken Snape as a 'damsel' most likely because he A. Had longish hair that when washed looked quite lovely B. Because his robes were so long and one color they could appear to be a dress from the back and C. Well, there was no 'c'.

"Hark!" he cried, oblivious to the wrath that the newly appointed DADA teacher, whom he held aloft in the air up on the Gryffindor table, "I have saved you, Damsel!"

Oh yes, they were so running now.

**Author's Notes:**

In honor of the Superbowl, I'm updating a day early. Hope you all enjoy the treat! I think I'll be cheering for Pittsburgh, but I don't have a strong opinion either way. Any of you guys watching it?

Can you tell I really like this fic? xD I'm hoping that the slight little thing with Draco and Mione isn't above a 'T' rating- if it is, that's pretty sad, ne? I hope you're all enjoying the humor, it's definitely been a lot of fun to write. Especially this last part with Harry. I dunno, I can just see him doing that xD

I'd like to thank all of the following reviewers for their nice comments: LishaChan, MilkyWayNut, Rozu, ManMenDude, xxwitchxx, elizaII, Kite1011, Power-Piszr, chrissytingting, TEAMJakeward101, Jimmi08, Dramione Dreamer, CircleofPie, Dramione-Fan 17, Mindori Takahashi, Dhassy, The Future Mrs. Draco Malfoy, Kalli, Cheese Pringles Yum, coffeentoffee, Circle of Pie, and Review 50.

And the review(s) that made my day: **chrissytingting: **Your review really made me smile and squeal quite happily. I'm glad you like Lavender and Parvati's character. I always figured they had to be sorted into Gryffindor for a reason so it stands that they shouldn't be so flightly as everyone makes them out to be. Also yes! Yay for Sluggy being a Slytherin. They are quite devious :D

Also, **Kite1011 **for her enthuiasim and beautiful use of exclamation makrs (I love them, I dont' care what my professor says). I hope this last chapter had you laughing as I think it's more "happier" than the last two have been. I guess best of luck to your Packers - they've had a great season!

As always, I love reviews. So please everyone, help an authoress out and leave your comments. Thanks!

_Updated on: February 5, 2011_


	4. Chapter Four

**Edit: **Hello everyone, I appear to have accidentally deleted the chapter. I was trying to export it for my records and I guess I wasn't reading the prompts carefully enough. In any case, here it is, with a few minor edits and a poll at the bottom that I'd love to hear responses on. I

On anothere note, I did notice that a lot of you have been viewing the chapter but most of you aren't leaving comments. I know it's not required, but all authors love to hear what people think of their work and it really makes writng even more fun when you know you're writing for an appreciative audience. So please, if you can find a moment after spending several reading the chapter, click that lovely review button. Thank you.

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Four**

Many would look back on that moment and laugh at the absurdity of it. But they weren't looking back yet and if they valued their lives they would have to do something. Very, very fast.

Snape looked half a second away from cursing Harry on the spot, the 'boy wonder' oblivious to the wrath of the dfamsel he held in his arms. "Were you injured?" he asked.

"Potter, if you do not put me down this instant I am not responsible for my actions," he snarled, wand at Harry's temple.

"Why of course, fair damsel," Harry said agreeably, placing the Potions master down.

"We're really sorry, Professor," Dean said, rushing forth and grabbing Harry by his 'cape'. His fellow classmates had all been frozen in terror and he had only moved because being cowardly was a Slytherin thing to do; a Gryffindor would run up and save the day.

Although, he always did think Slytherin was a nice house…

"See, there was this potion," he babbled, "We made a potion in Potions, because that's what you do, right? You'd know, you were the Potions professor. So, we made potions. They were love potions and-"

"Quit that prattle, Thomas, and speak," Snape growled, dark eyes flashing ominously.

Taking a deep breath, and realizing he hadn't done anything so there was no way Snape could punish him, Dean said, "We had to create our own love potions, Sir. The one Harry took, that he didn't make, made him go a bit loopy. He thinks he has to save all the damsels or something."

"Damsels?" Snape repeated, face darkening.

Dean gave a faint nod.

"Do I _look_ like a damsel?" Snape asked.

"Yes! I mean no! No! Definitely not! Never! You look nothing like that! You look like… like a bat!" he said proudly.

"A bat?" The voice was even darker now.

"Um… a very handsome damsel," Dean said. "Wait, I mean bat! A very handsome bamsel! No, dat! Bamsel?"

Dean had never been good at making excuses or getting out of sticky situations. He made it a point to never get into them for that very reason. Most especially because his tongue had a way of twisting everything he said, and just like now, made the situation worse. And Harry on a cracked up love potion made it even more.

"I dunno," Harry said, still striking a heroic pose next to Dean. "I think she looks very much like a damsel. Oh, hark!" he cried, attention diverted by a young student dropping her books. "Another D.I.D. needs my help!"

Dean felt his resolve waver as Snape turned the most hellish glare on him. He wouldn't honestly have been surprised if he was killed right there. May they all remember him as the idiot Gryffindor who had put himself between Harry and Snape in an attempt to save the former's life.

"Fifty points from Gryffindor," Snape hissed, his eyes mere slits, "Get out of my sight before I take more."

"Y-yes, Sir," Dean stuttered, backing up and then all out sprinting, dragging Harry along by his arm. Strangely enough, most of the students from his class had vanished. "What?" he asked aloud, glancing around for them.

"That was great, mate," Seamus roared with laughter. He and Parvati were waiting in the doorway. "You were doing so well, we decided just to watch."

"Yeah, thanks so much," Dean glared, heart still racing. "I thought he was going to kill me. And Harry," he said, giving the black haired boy a firm shake through his arm, "only made things worse. And where did everyone else go?"

"Well, Bulstrode and Neville went to go get the antidote for Harry," said Parvati. "None of us thought to bring it up. Parkinson actually took Ron up to the Hospital Wing. Crabbe and Goyle and those two other Slytherin girls I strangely don't know I think all stayed back in the room. And Zabini, Davis, and Lavender went in search of Hermione."

"What about Malfoy?" Dean asked, struggling to keep a grip on the "Hark!ing" Harry.

"I dunno," Seamus said. "Just upped and vanished he did. Git probably doesn't want to take Hermione's potion when they find her."

A clatter of footsteps announced the arrival of the potion. "What happened?" Neville asked, thrusting the vial of dark red potion into Dean's free hand.

"I embarrassed myself, Harry made it worse, and I think he's about to rip my arm off," Dean said, "and there's no way I can open this while I hold on to him. A little help?"

"I'm surprised you're honestly not dead," Bulstrode said, while Neville unscrewed the bottle in the black boy's hand.

"Yeah, well maybe if one of you Slytherins had intervened I wouldn't have almost my life in the first place."

She shrugged her broad shoulders. "It's more entertaining when you Gryffindors try to be all brave and noble."

Seamus' mouth dropped. "Wait, wait, wait," he said, pointing a finger at the Slytherin. "You purposely let us make fools of ourselves?"

"Why not?" she asked.

"What the bloody hell did I do?" asked a very dazed and horrified voice after Neville had finally gotten the bottle open and administered the antidote.

"You called Snape a damsel several times, held him in the air, and then proceeded to call him a damsel again," Dean said. "And you got an innocent friend, aka me, caught in the crossfire."

"I can't believe I did that," he moaned, burying his face in his hands.

"Yeah, well you better start because when our DADA grades mysteriously drop to T's it'll be all too real," Dean said.

"Why me?" Harry asked, looking pitifully at the assembled group. "Why meeeeeeeeeeee?"

xxx

The three who had gone after Hermione split up after leaving the Potions classroom, Blaise heading outside, Lavender heading back to the Gryffindor Tower, and Davis to the library.

It was Blaise who found her.

She was sitting at the edge of the lake, her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around herself. As he got nearer, he could hear her sniffling softly and saw faint tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Granger."

She whipped her head around, unruly curls flying in every direction. Discovering who it was she narrowed her eyes and turned her face back to the lake. "And what do you want, Zabini?"

"To bring you back to class, actually," he said, settling himself on the ground a few paces away from her. "We need to start the next potions."

"I am not going back," she scowled, another tear escaping from her eye. "I refuse to be in the same room as that… that… ferret."

"Feeling's mutual."

She glanced up in surprise. "I thought you and Malfoy were friends."

"We are. We're just having a bit of a… fight right now. I'm sure you and Weasley and Potter have them at times too."

"Sounds like a bit more than a fight," she said, than covered her mouth with a gasp. "Oh! I didn't mean to pry," she apologized. Of all the Slytherins she had ever met, Zabini and Davis were the nicest and the ones she was most comfortable around. They had never done anything to hurt her or her friends either, and she respected them for that. And then here she was, sticking her nose in someone else's business.

He laughed, although the sound was anything but humorous. "Well, it is a bit more than that. Draco just doesn't know when to listen to some well-meaning advice. But I understand how you're feeling. He can be a real git, and I'm sorry he made you do that. And I'm sorry on his behalf for hitting you too. I don't think he even meant to."

"Well, he seemed quite pleased about it to me," she said, gingerly touching her cheek. The bruise was getting better and in a few days would hopefully be gone. "But thank you," she said quietly, meeting eyes with the Slytherin.

"No problem," he said with a smile, white teeth gleaming against his milk chocolate skin. "And despite how much you loathe him at the current minute, giving him your love potion does alter your grade if you choose not to go. And you can have payback now, right?"

She shuddered. "I personally don't understand how he liked my… attentions," she spat the word, "but I for certain don't want Malfoy all over me. But," she said resignedly, "there is the grade. And it would be horrible if I failed Potions because of Malfoy."

Blaise rose and then offered his hand to help Hermione up. The girl stared at it for a moment, knowing that a hand from a Slytherin always meant more than the obvious, and then accepted it, allowing Blaise to pull her to her feet.

And then red and green walked side by side back to Potions.

xxx

When they got back, the rest of the class save Pansy and Ron were there. And Crabbe. When Lavender asked where he was, Slughorn said that due to his behavior earlier, he had been 'excused' from the project and would receive a failing grade. Parvati smirked in victory.

"Now that almost everyone is here," Slughorn said, "please take a few minutes to write down a summary of what happened or what you observed of your partner under the potion. In… seven minutes, we will begin round two of the potions. Miss Patil, since your partner is no longer here, you will test your potion on whichever young gentleman finishes first."

Hermione had taken her seat next to Draco, but refused to look at him, and scribbled furiously on her parchment. About a minute in, the dungeon door creaked open and Ron and Pansy came in, Ron's head swaddled in bandages. Hermione blinked. What had happened?

Since her friend didn't appear to be fuming at Pansy, she figured whatever had happened had been cleared up. Harry looked awfully red too… in fact, if she wasn't mistaken, he was clearly embarrassed over something. Maybe his potion had been as bad as hers?

"All right then," Slughorn said, breaking the quiet of the room, "Let's get started. Papers away and potions out! Have fun everyone!"

Hermione glared at the blond Slytherin and he glared back. "Your turn," she said, holding out the vial of shimmering cream potion.

He took it grudgingly and stared at the liquid. "What, are you scared?" she taunted as he continued to look at the potion.

"You wish, Mudblood," he snarled, taking it like a shot. And then it began.

xxx

"I think I messed it up," Neville sighed as Tracey looked at him blankly. "I'm just no good at Potions," he said miserably.

He was feeling quite fortunate that he'd gotten Tracey as his partner. She was quiet and very un-Slytherin like. To make her even better, besides flattering her in old English, she hadn't had him do anything horrible or embarrassing. Like Harry. Definitely not like Harry.

She smiled gently. "It's all right, we all have weak points. I'm no good at Transfiguration. But your potion did taste good, that's a plus."

He brightened. "Really? I was trying to make it taste like sugar cookies… those are sweet, right?"

"You can be my sugar cookie," she said, smirk crossing her rosy lips, "and I'll eat you right up."

"W-what?" he asked. "Are you all right, Davis?"

"I… I don't know what got into me," she said, blinking at him in surprise, face flushing. "That was odd."

He nodded. "You're as red as a cherry."

Her eyes seemed to glaze over. "I'll be the cherry on top if you'll be the whip cream on the bottom," she whispered huskily, planting a kiss on the tip of his nose and leaning over him, knocking the boy from his chair. Seconds later, she recoiled as if shocked, her blush worse than before.

"I think your potion might be working somehow," she said, averting her eyes.

"Y-yeah. But I don't know what it's doing," he said, shaking his head. "We're certainly in a pickle."

"You be the pickle, and I'll be the brine," she breathed, rubbing up against him and trailing kisses down his face. "Just let me cover you all over…"

"T-Tracey?" he stuttered, lying completely underneath her now while her hands held his arms above her head.

"I don't know what's going on," she cried, shoving off of him and backpedaling into the counter behind them.

"Try the antidote," Neville said, getting up and reaching for the bottle. "It'll taste good, like chocolate, I hope."

"Chocolate is sweet, but your lips are sweeter," she said, pressing hers over his, and then shoving him up against the opposite wall to deepen the kiss.

Neville fainted dead away.

xxx

When she had said she wanted a potion that would make any guy be the perfect date: dancing, and roses, and sweet murmurs, she hadn't anticipated this. She also hadn't planned on using it on Weasley.

"Your beauty is so great," he gushed, kneeling before her with her hands clasped in his. "May I kiss you now?"

"No, Weasley. No kissing."

"But I cannot simply walk away from you, the most beautiful woman, without granting you a kiss."

"Believe me, it's my pleasure to not accept one."

He stared at her, brain processing this information. "But I must show you how much I love you!"

"A kiss on the hand will do then."

"But that is not enough," he said, placing one there anyway. "I know! Let us dance underneath the moon!"

"It's daylight," she said.

"Then let us dance under the sun!"

"It's cold out."

"Not cold enough to stop the burning of our love."

"No, no, no!" she screamed as Ron, muscles built up from Quidditch and all the work he did around the Burrow, picked the girl up and swung her over his shoulder. "Put me down! Down Weasley!"

"It would be very rude of me to drop you," he said, making his way out of the dungeon. "And besides, it would be even ruder of me not to accept your request to dance."

"I DON'T WANT TO DANCE!"

"Deep down you do," he said cheerfully. "All women love to dance. And what better way than to show my love than a passionate waltz for all to see?"

"I DON'T DANCE!" she screamed, pounding her fists against his back.

"I know you can," he said encouragingly.

"NOT A CHANCE!"

"If I can do this, well you can do that."

"Do what?" she asked, momentarily pausing in her hitting of the redhead.

"I dunno, it just seemed the right thing to say."

"Well, put me down, Weasley! Before someone sees us!"

"But, my love, I want to show everyone how much we love each other. Everyone should watch us dance."

They had now made it up the steps and into the main corridor of the school, several stray students who didn't have class giving them strange looks and giggling. Really now, Slughorn should have put out a notice of some sort that announced love potion testing was going on and to take all strange happenings as nothing important.

Sadly, such a memo didn't exist so the laughter and questions followed the 'couple' all the way out of the building and across the front lawn. But honestly, who could blame them? Watching a Weasley carrying a Parkinson, who they all knew didn't get along, with her kicking and screaming and his head wrapped in bandages with a pleasant expression on his face, caused need for some investigation.

Ron gently placed Pansy on the ground underneath a large Elm tree, and as soon as her feet touched ground the Slytherin immediately tried to run away, but Ron caught her wrists.

"Come, my love, let us dance the song of our passion."

"I don't want to dance," she protested, "and especially with you."

Ron, in his love-addled mind and with the intention of doing everything a 'perfect date' would do paid the protests no mind. Instead, he brought their arms up, hands clasped together, and began to parade her around their grassy dance floor.

How Ron knew to dance, and to dance multiple styles was beyond her. They flew through the waltz, the jive, the samba… and even as they did the rhumba, her body betrayed her and she found herself pressing against Ron, moving in beat with him and her hands gripping his muscular shoulders.

In fact, she was enjoying herself. All those in the upper wizarding society had been taught various forms of dance from a young age, due to all the parties the wealthy wizards like to throw. She had never really cared for dancing, however, unless it was just for fun with Draco.

So when they broke apart a while later, her face flushed and dark hair curling in damp ringlets around her face, with Ron giving her a beaming smile, she had to admit that hadn't been so bad.

Until the applause started and she realized the outdoor classes (Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures) as well as all the students that had followed them out the door had watched. Watched her. Dance. With a Weasley.

Already slightly light-headed from dancing it didn't take much for her to faint. Right into Ron's waiting arms no less, as he scooped her up bridal style, bowed to the crowd, amidst much cheering and hooting, and headed back for the dungeons.

xxx

"Do you have a map? I keep getting lost in your eyes."

Parvati giggled and looked fondly at the dark Slytherin. He had been the first boy to finish, and since he was insanely good-looking, she'd decided to test her potion on him. And oh did it work.

"Do you happen to have an address? I seem to have lost mine." He stared at her, dark puppy eyes filled with sincere love and happiness.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to get into Gryffindor Tower," she said, patting him lightly on the hand. "But that is where I live, in case you ever want to stop by."

Blaise, not really comprehending what she was saying due to the effects of the potion, merely smiled at the sound of her voice and voiced a new line.

"I'm a thief and I'm here to steal your heart," he murmured, placing a chaste kiss on her cheek. "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put 'U' and 'I' next to each other."

"I don't know," she said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Everyone says pick-up lines don't work, but if a cute guy, like you, Zabini, spouted them off to me and they weren't too corny or ridiculous, I think I'd take them."

"Do you believe in love at first sight, or should I walk by again?" Blaise asked, having walked a few paces past her and then looked over his shoulder.

"No, first sight will do," she said, beckoning him back to his chair. "And since you've already had to endure torture once today, you can have the antidote now."

Before the Slytherin could come back with another line, Parvati tipped the potion into his mouth and watched as the 'puppy dog' look in his eyes vanished.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asked, pulling her sheet of parchment towards her to begin writing her summary.

"Compared to what I had to do prior, that was great," he said, beginning to write his own summary.

"Oh?"

He winced. "I must have kissed her hand like a hundred times. And she kept cooing and patting me on the head. I tried to stop, but her stupid potion wouldn't let me."

"Well, class is almost over," the Gryffindor said. "And then we can put this day behind us."

"I think that's quite impossible for some people," he said.

"Come to think of it… yeah. But at least we're not them."

Blaise raised his bottle of water. "To not being almost everyone else."

Lavender raised her bottle of strawberry-flavored water. "I'll drink to that."

"Cheers."

xxx

"Your potion fails, Mudblood," Draco said, staring at his perfectly manicured nails.

"Just give it another few minutes," she said crossly, wishing she had invented some potion that would make Malfoy do something stupid. "It'll work."

She must have added more Antipodean Opaleye scales than she had first thought. The idea was for the potion to at least have some sort of minor effect within the first few minutes. And then gradually the thoughts would become deeper, but longer apart.

Unfortunately, they'd been sitting there for near five minutes now and nothing had happened, save Malfoy telling her what an idiot she was.

"Fine," she conceded after five minutes had more than passed. "Nothing happened. Take the antidote anyway, just in case something does happen."

"I don't know if I trust it," Draco said, looking distrustfully at the vial.

"Just drink it," she sighed, mentally going over her recipe. She had been so certain it would work. And maybe it would if given more time… but she didn't have time. And now she looked like a fool who couldn't even brew a simple potion. She was sure she'd be getting teased about this at every opportunity the slimy ferret could get his hands on.

"At least it didn't taste awful," he said, placing the now empty vial down. "I half-expected to be poisoned."

"Maybe I should have put some poisonous boysenberries in it instead of all the orange peel then," Hermione huffed. "Then instead of a tropical drink you'd be foaming at the mouth."

"Then you messed up again, Mudblood, if you were aiming for tropical. It clearly tasted like grape. If I die, because you're unable to do anything right, I will haunt you until you go crazy and end up at St. Mungo's."

She turned away from him. "Just write what happened so I can get away from you."

"That's easy," he said, scrawling the word 'nothing' on his parchment in large block letters. "There, all done."

She picked up his parchment and her own, collected her empty potion bottles and walked up to the front to drop all the required materials off at Slughorn's desk a few minutes later.

Draco watched her walk away, her long curls cascading down her back like a golden-brown waterfall and bobbing lightly with each footfall.

Wait.

Had he just thought of her rat's nest of hair as something other than… well, a rat's nest? Something actually… pretty?

He shook his head and then glanced at the girl again, now going to sit down in her normal seat. Bouncy curls were just as horrid as usual, seemingly trying to eat her head.

It must have been a side-effect of his potion on her… yes, that had to be it. She had been somewhat pretty when she was being all un-Mudblood like. He must have just confused the two for a minute.

But he was fine now. Absolutely fine. Even if her potion hadn't done anything and her antidote obviously tasted opposite what she had intended, he knew she was (unfortunately) good with potions and wouldn't sabotage them just to get back at him. She didn't know who her partner was going to be, after all, so she couldn't have made an elaborate trap for him.

Risking one more glance, he looked at her hair, the curls looking like some sort of tentacles.

Draco breathed a sigh of relief and turned to packing up his own potion bottles. He was going to be fine.

xxx

Not everyone was though. Harry had gone to the Hospital Wing after Millicent dive-bombed him and broke four of his ribs as she tried to 'hug' him. Harry swore she was going for murder. On top of that for the poor boy-who-saved-D.I.D.'s, he was embarrassed beyond measure about the incident with Snape and it was unlikely his face would return to its normal pallor anytime soon.

Neville's antidote, much like his potion, didn't work the way it was supposed to. He and Tracey had finally concluded that what sparked her little 'episodes' for better lack of word was the mention of any type of food. Since it wasn't the worst love potion ever (she wasn't like Harry!) Slughorn said she'd be fine for a few days while he examined Neville's potion and looked for a cure.

Tracey said they should just kill her now. Fortunately, no one but her, Neville, and now Slughorn knew, so hopefully no one would take advantage of her. She just decided she'd eat in her rooms for the next couple of meals, just so no one would say "Pass the green beans" and she'd have to find some sexual innuendo to say.

Ron was still recovering from his loss of hair, and Madam Pomfrey estimated it about a week before it would all grow back in. Pansy was suffering from a healthy dose of embarrassment, of A. having been seen dancing with a Weasley and B. actually liking dancing with a Weasley.

But other than that, the class as a whole seemed to be all right. Slughorn was overjoyed by the fact no one had died and there had only been a few minor upsets.

"I hope you all had fun," he said, grinning widely. "I'll try and have your potions and papers graded sometime next week. Since today was such an excellent class, you can all have the rest of the week off."

Cheers greeted this announcement and students got up to leave for their next class; the hour and a half was finally over.

To Hermione, it had felt like a year. And if she thought that class had felt long…

Wait until she saw the rest of her school year.

**Author's Notes:**

Just as a little disclaimer, the lyrics I used from HSM2 belong to Disney, not to me xD

On another note, school has gotten a bit crazy. Not classes, just the extracurriculars. Crazy how that works, huh? I'm hoping it won't interfere with my writing at all but that's just to keep you posted.

I'd like to offer a huge thank you to those of you who found the time to review the chapter. You lovely people are: LishaChan, CircleofPie, SlytherinPrincessxXx, elizaII, dramioneluver32, nightowl55, Crazy-Obsessed-Writer52, Jjimmi08, dramionerox, Krazyfangirl, chrissytingting, Dramione Dreamer, MilkyWayNut, DracoluverAlanna, Dramione-Fan 17, pirateKitten11893, twilightfaerie, Pirates16103, SimplyChristine, beautifly92, xxWARxx, TeddyBearKrista, Cinna16, Teresa, coffeentoffee, CrazyCrazyRainbowStar, Stormy Skies, xxPixar Chickxx, Dhassy, Crystal Snow, BlueBabyAquaGirl, LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL, ooo a jellybean, Pirate Doll, MokuabaDoll, The Third Wheel, Sharpie Stuffs, and Smiley12341.

And the Review that Made My Day: **CrazyCrazyRainbowStar. **I must say I felt very loved when you were considering worshipping me :D Easily made my day a little better. Glad you like how the potions have turned out so far, hope you liked them this chapter!

As always, I love reviews and comments. Even as much as what your favorite part of the chapter was. Last year as a clear landslide of Harry's D.I.D. moments. Hope you enjoy the chapter, I'd love to hear your comments on it, and hopefully see you in two weeks! Also, please do respond to the poll below. I'd love to hear your opinions!

**Which of the following potions moments was your favorite?**

**A. **Harry Harking after D.I.D's  
**B. **Pansy eating Ron's hair  
**C. **Tracey spouting off sexual innuendos  
**D.** Ron and Pansy dancing outside

_Updated: February 20, 2011_


	5. Chapter Five

**Authors Notes: **Just wanted to say a quick thank you up here for all of your support last chapter. Hope to see you all again!

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Five**

**Poll Results:  
****A (Harking Harry): 22  
****B (Ron's Hair): 8  
****C (Tracey's Innuendos): 7  
****D (Pansy's Dance): 7**

He was beginning to think he was developing a cold. More of a cold, actually. A severe case of Dragon Pox disguised as a cold with the side effects of Billywigitis.

After all, he had to be sick. Because there was no other explanation of why he couldn't get Granger out of his head. Especially those gorgeous honey colored curls of hers.

He'd just thought it again, hadn't he?

It was Thursday. The almost finished week had been as normal as he could have expected. He picked on a few first year Gryffindors, laughed at Hagrid, made fun of Weasel and Pothead, and finished all of his homework. There had just been a few…oddities… that he didn't like to dwell on but everything always came back to them.

Most pressing was Blaise's cold-shoulder tactic. He knew he'd upset the dark Slytherin, but really, it had been nearly a week! Blaise had never been one to hold grudges for more than a few minutes; it honestly made Draco wonder how the Zabini had made it into Slytherin.

Granted, what Draco had said could be taken as a serious threat and they had disagreed over a very sensitive topic for the both of them, but still… He missed his best friend. He risked a glance at Blaise down the table, the boy sitting next to Theodore Nott and resolutely ignoring Draco.

He could apologize… but Malfoy's never apologized for anything. Besides, he was right and Blaise was wrong and it was as simple as that. If Blaise would just realize his obvious mistake and ask for Draco's forgiveness he'd give it to him.

But the normally easy-going Slytherin was being as stubborn as Draco himself normally was, and the blond didn't like the change.

And then there was the other problem that dealt with the Mudblood. He normally didn't mind when she popped up in his thoughts; they all normally dealt with humiliating or passing her up. Being glorified in her shame. Rising in her weaknesses. That's what had always happened before (he chose to block out a few select memories where she had gotten the better of him).

Now though… she was on his mind with her rat's nest of a hair. He couldn't get those bloody curls out of his head; it was the Yule Ball all over again. Although then he hadn't realized it was her at first and could gaze at her beauty… now that he knew he suddenly viewed the Mudblood's hair as semi-decent…

Oh, who he was kidding? Her hair was gorgeous. And if it were on anyone but her he might consider getting to know them. He had almost caught himself reaching to touch it in Ancient Runes earlier that day and had spent the rest of the class writing every horrible adjective he could think of to describe her and her beautiful hair.

He didn't understand what was wrong with him. Nothing about Mudbloods were nice. They were disgusting, vile, abhorrence's who should never have been allowed in Hogwarts. Salazar had had the right idea.

This problem needed to be fixed and quickly. His first thought was to simply cut away all of the Mudblood's hair so that he wouldn't have to look at it. But she could just use a hair lengthening charm to get it back to its normal height in just a few weeks. And the idea of cutting away those curls made his stomach clench. Although that just made him more convinced they needed to go.

But cutting the curls… That actually sounded like a good idea. They'd be gone, he'd stop obsessing over them, and then this sudden attraction for the Mudblood would vanish. It was perfect. Now, when to carry it out? He'd have to try his best to make it look like an accident. It was a shame they didn't have Charms together; that would be a great opportunity to cut it off.

He blinked and replayed that sentence in his head. Very, very wrong. If he hadn't continued on his thought it almost sounded like… like he wanted to have Charms with her.

He cast a disgusted glare at the back of her head across the Great Hall. The curls were lying there, so innocent and almost sparkling in the candlelight like molten gold.

This was not working.

With a frustrated growl, he shoved off from the table and out of the hall, ignoring Pansy's calls for him to come back.

That hair had to go. And it needed to go now.

xxx

"Have either of you noticed anything different with Malfoy?" Hermione asked, glancing at her best friends on either side of her.

"Malfoy?" Ron repeated, tearing into a chicken leg. "No, nothing out of his usual royal prick-ness."

"Did he do something?" Harry asked, eyes flashing worry.

"No, it's not like that," she said. "He's just… I don't know how to word it…"

"You don't know something?" Ron asked incredulously, earning a swat to the back of his head.

"I just feel him looking at me sometimes," she confessed quietly. "And I know he's got some grudge against me more so this year that the last few, but I just feel strange."

"Want me to go beat him up for you?" the redhead asked eagerly, waving his drumstick around for emphasis.

She shook her head with a wry smile. "As much as I'd love to see that ferret be put in his place, I don't want you to get in trouble. And right now, he's not doing anything too bad. I'm just getting this uneasy feeling."

"Listen to your gut instinct," Harry cautioned. "Especially when it's concerning Malfoy. He's a git, but he's also pretty clever. He might be plotting something."

"I could ask Blaise," she murmured, tapping a finger thoughtfully to her chin.

"Who?" Ron asked, starting on another drumstick.

"Zabini," she clarified.

"Hold up," Ron said, pointing the chicken at Hermione. "Since when were you and him on a first name basis?"

"He's not so bad," she said with a shrug and reached for her glass of pumpkin juice. "Although he told me that he and Malfoy were in a fight…"

Harry craned his neck around and scanned the Slytherin table, just in time to see Malfoy slam his hands against the table and stalk from the room, while Blaise sat much further down the table from where the blond had gotten up.

"By the looks of it they're still fighting," he said. "But you're right, something is up with Malfoy."

"When is something not up with that git?" Ron mumbled around a mouth full of mashed potatoes.

"No," Harry said, turning to look at the two. "If there's one thing I've learned about Malfoy, it's he always has a level head. Even when he's doing something horrible he always manages to remain in control of his emotions. He just smashed his hands on the table and stormed out. The Malfoy we've all come to know and loathe would never let anyone see he was that angry."

"Harry's right," Hermione said, brow furrowing. "He's almost always on top of things, unless he somehow gets thrown," she said as her mind drifted back to their latest hall patrol. "He snapped when I threw his argument back in his face; he wasn't expecting it. Something's bothering him."

"Good," Ron said. "Let him be in the frying pan for once."

Hermione gave a nod. Had it been anyone else she would have tried to see if she could help and understand what was bothering them. But not Malfoy. He was the last person to deserve any form of compassion.

"Sooo," Ron said, "now that that's settled, about our Charms homework… I didn't quite understand some of it."

"Which part?" Hermione asked, giving him a wary glance.

"Questions from one to twelve," he grinned.

"That's the entire assignment," she exclaimed, narrowing her gaze. "Don't even think about it, Ronald Weasley."

"But-"

"No."

"Plea-"

"Nope."

xxx

He was pacing. He never paced. Unless of course he was plotting world domination, but in that case pacing was fine. It was not fine now. And if he kept this up he'd leave a run in the carpet.

Fortunately for him, none of his dorm mates had come back. He didn't quite want to explain that the reason he was pacing and destroying their floor was because of the Mudblood's hair. He'd been up there for over an hour and still no brilliant idea had hit him.

The best way to go about it would to have it be an 'accident'. That way, he wouldn't get docked points or get in trouble. Or, if he were able to do it in DADA and even if it didn't appear to be an accident, Snape wouldn't take points. He'd probably thank him.

They had DADA tomorrow at one in the afternoon, so that would be the opportune time to strike. They had been studying shield spells, so performing one that would 'accidentally' cut her hair off would be near impossible. So, all out assault it was.

As the door gave a creak open, Draco jerked his head up and looked at Blaise as he came in. Ignoring Draco completely, Blaise simply brushed past him and sat down on his bed and began to unpack his schoolbag.

He stood still and watched his long time friend, shed his robes and dress in a sensible pair of flannel green pajamas. Kicking the covers back, he climbed under them and opened up his Charms book to read the chapter assigned.

Seconds later, Draco was surprised to hear his own blood pumping in his ears and his vision had nearly tunneled on Blaise. His hands were shaking slightly and he clenched them into fists to quell it.

Not having Blaise by his side was affecting him more than he thought possible. Even now, the unfamiliar but very painful feeling of guilt swam in his gut, and it only worsened with every day. And deep down, he knew he owed the other boy an apology, but the day he apologized for anything would be the day Potter sided with Voldemort.

Draco's body had different ideas though. Mechanically, as though he were on auto-pilot, his legs carried him over to where Blaise was and he stood next to the foot of the bed. He felt his lips part and a very quiet 'Blaise' was whispered.

The dark boy ignored him, eyes fixed resolutely on his book.

Draco tried again. "Blaise… I…" he trailed off, already knowing what he was going to have to say. "I'm… I'm sorry," he said quietly.

Blaise's eyes met his. "No, you're not," he said, an iciness present in his voice that Draco had only heard a few times, and never directed at him. "If you were sorry you'd listen to what I have to say and actually take the time to understand it."

"What you're saying is madness," Draco said, feeling his temper rise, something that had been happening a lot these past few days. "You're telling me to turn against everything I've ever been taught, to turn against my family and betray them because you don't like the idea of killing."

"Yes," Blaise said simply, not breaking their gaze. "You shouldn't listen to what they say or what you've been taught. Listen to your heart, Draco."

"My heart?" he scoffed. "I have no heart, Blaise."

"I used to think you did," Blaise said softly. "You know who you remind me of, Draco? Kay."

"Who?"

"He's a boy in a muggle fairytale, _The Snow Queen_."

"I don't want to hear about some stupid muggle story-"

"You're going to listen," Blaise snapped, gaze as hot as smoldering coal. "Kay used to be this warm, friendly person until a shard of the troll-mirror, a mirror that makes everything look ugly and distorted, pierced his heart.

"After that, he becomes cruel and aggressive. He breaks the window box that he and Gerda, his best friend, share and love. He shuns his grandmother and Gerda. His heart became ice and that winter he went to live with the Snow Queen. Everyone thought he had drowned in the river, but Gerda refused to give up on him. She faced trial after trial until she found him, and then saved him from living with the Snow Queen for eternity.

"You're just like him, Draco. You used to be a person I could call a friend. But you've been poisoned and your heart has turned to ice. Cold, unfeeling ice. And unlike Gerda, no amount of chasing is going to bring you back. Because she was pure of heart and innocent, while I know I'm not. But even so, if I were to find you, you would refuse to leave your palace of ice."

"Blaise-"

"I don't want to give up on you, Draco. But when all you do is push me away and fight for an ideal that you don't even know if you truly want to follow-"

"I do want to follow it," he hissed, "I'm following in my family's footsteps and I'm _proud _to. The Malfoys have always been regarded as one of the best Pureblood families and I'm not going to let my father down."

"It's not a matter of letting him down," Blaise countered. "It's about letting yourself down. Honestly Draco, do you want Granger or one of the other muggleborns dead? By your hand? Their blood all over your hands and robes and their last sound a curse upon you?"

"As long as they all die and we purify the world I don't care what I have to do," he said, face never blanching for a second.

Blaise shook his head in exasperation. "There's no getting through that thick head of yours, is there? I don't know what to do anymore, Draco. You've always been my best friend, and I don't want to lose you. But I'm not going to be friends with a cold-blooded murderer who kills for no other reason besides lineage."

Draco huffed and turned his back. "Then be that way. See if I care when you're killed for refusing to join."

Quite positive that everything had just taken a turn for the worse, Draco stalked over to his bed, surprised to feel a hot liquid pooling in the corners of his eyes. Dragging his arm across, he slumped down on his own bed with his back turned resolutely away.

He didn't understand why he was being so emotional lately. He had always been so good at controlling his emotions and keeping them in check, but these last few days he found himself angrier and frustrated more often.

Cursing himself silently for losing his nonchalant façade, Draco drew the curtains around his bed and picked up a Herbology book to read, contenting himself to stay there for the rest of the night.

Blaise had noticed the slight differences as well, and his face softened as he saw Draco run a hand over his face. Despite what they'd just said to one another, Draco had tried to apologize. Blaise felt slightly honored, he was probably the first non-relative to ever hear an apology from Draco.

He missed having his best friend too. They were both friends with Pansy, but the girl was sick of being the go-between. And she often sided with Draco in arguments, and Blaise had thought this one was no exception. So one could imagine his surprise when she had pulled him aside after dinner earlier that week to tell him that she agreed with him. Not Draco. But for him not to tell Draco… then he'd be mad at her too.

Looking back now though, Blaise could somewhat understand the Slytherin girl's change of heart. Her mother had been killed the summer before after failing to complete her task assigned by Voldemort. Her father was now often drunk and took it out on Pansy. She had the bruises to prove it when she came back from breaks.

Blaise admired her courage in telling him. If he had decided to tell on her to not only Draco, but any other Slytherins, word would reach her father faster than Potter caught the Snitch… and the possibilities weren't pleasant.

Blaise's own father was a Death Eater, but he'd never known his mother with her dying a year after he was born with unexplainable causes. Even as a child, Blaise had questioned his Pureblood status and never understood why exactly it made it all right for them to hurt others.

He had been enthralled with muggles. Their stories, their weird devices, and how they had never heard of magic, but still managed. His father had had no time for him and so Blaise was looked after by a nanny. She had died a year before he entered Hogwarts, due to again 'unexplainable causes'. Blaise still had the odd feeling his father had some idea what had happened to both his nanny and his mother.

But before she had died, she would read him stories from the muggle fairytale books when Nirav, his father, wasn't there and she even once took him to a muggle park. He'd never been to one since, but he really wanted to go back just to sit on the swing again or go down the slide. He never recalled having so much fun before.

Draco though… he'd never had someone like that in his life before. Lucius was just as cruel as Nirav. And although Draco did have a mother, she never bothered with him. He was raised by House Elves… it was a wonder he'd come out as normal as he was.

Heaving a sigh, Blaise put his own book aside and rose to his feet. He would not allow them to splinter apart, despite how much Draco was frustrating him with his continued stubbornness. Even if they just called a truce for now and ignored the ever looming problem was better than this continued ignorance. Because if he left Draco to his own devices, then it would only get worse and not better.

Not even bothering to ask, Blaise shoved the curtain aside and seated himself on the foot of Draco's bed. The blond glanced up in surprise, his features turning stony as he saw Blaise. "Do you need something?" he asked shortly.

"A truce," Blaise said. At Draco's raised eyebrow he continued. "I propose a truce on this whole Death Eater matter right now. I won't tell you my views if you don't tell me yours." He extended his hand and Draco glanced between it and Blaise's face, looking for some hint of deception.

He carefully placed his own in the mocha brown and after a quick shake they parted. "So, we're good now?" Blaise asked.

"Yeah," Draco said with a small smile. "So, now that we're friends again, I need you to do something for me."

"Draco…" Blaise trailed off in an exasperated tone.

"In DADA tomorrow I need you to…"

xxx

The last day of the school week dawned slightly cloudy with a bit of a nippy breeze. Draco had arrived to DADA slightly early, which was unusual at best. Normally, he flaunted that he was Slytherin and Snape liked them and he came in late.

He had taken his normal seat, but pushed the other desks over slightly so that he had a clear view of the seat the Mudblood normally sat in. Blaise came into the classroom with the majority of the other students and took a far seat near the window.

Draco hadn't explained the entirety of what he was doing, except that no one was going to be hurt, which was the only reason Blaise agreed to help him.

Within a few minutes, the other Gryffindors and Slytherins had entered and sat quietly down in their seats. Snape went over the basis of the shield charm they'd been learning, and then asked the students to pair off to practice. Draco smirked at Goyle, who looked blankly at him, but readily took a stance.

Unfortunately, Draco's mind was elsewhere, and the giant oaf actually managed to hit him with the jelly leg charm they'd been told to use.

Granger. She was practicing two pairs away from him with Weasley while Potter was out of the way, confined to a corner and writing "Snape is a very handsome man" over and over again. Her hair was pulled back in a giant, fluffy ponytail of elegant curls. And it kept swishing ever so pleasantly as she pivoted and moved her arm to cast the shield or jelly leg jinx.

However, the small part of his brain that wasn't focused on the golden curls remembered the plan he had concocted. He glanced past Goyle's head to make eye contact with Blaise a few minutes later, at fifteen past one.

The dark haired boy gave a nod and a grimace and turned back to his partner, Crabbe. Still frowning, he intercepted Crabbe's spell and then raised his wand to shoot his own. They were both relying on Crabbe's inability to perform the shield charm, and their gamble had paid off.

Instead of shooting the harmless jelly leg curse, Blaise muttered 'Scimmia Iratia" and a bolt of bright yellow light hit the large boy in his chest.

Seconds later, a gorilla was sitting where Crabbe had once been, and it was definitely a mad gorilla. Which was exactly what Draco wanted as Crabbe began to let out gorilla-like screams and pounded the floor with his huge fists, the wood shattering beneath the ministrations.

Oh, he definitely got everyone's attention. Everyone except Draco's that is, who turned his attention to the object of his distraction all week.

Flicking his wand at the spot where the Gryffindor girl's hair connected to the ponytail cover, he shot off a cutting curse that he'd read hairdressers often used.

But just as it was about to hit, and leave her essentially with no hair except the curls that lay on her scalp, she moved.

Draco didn't understand the clench in his stomach as the sudden thought crossed his mind that if his spell caught her in the head, short hair would be the least of his problems.

But no blood went flying and he watched in partial satisfaction as all of the hair about an inch below the ponytail cover was sheared off, leaving the girl with just a few inches past her ears.

So distracted as she was, she didn't even notice the missing hair, although Draco was sure once the excitement was over she'd realize something was amiss. Still, he wasted no time and rushed towards the gorilla!Crabbe, who was now screaming something awful, to avoid suspicion.

"What is going on here?" Snape snarled, pushing through the students that were now gathered around the gorilla.

Blaise toed the ground sheepishly. "It's entirely my fault, Professor," he said. "I read ahead in the chapter and I wanted to try out one of the new shield charms. But my pronunciation was off and I guess it didn't go the way it was supposed to."

Draco had been clever, Blaise had to give him that. He knew that Snape would probably appreciate one of his Slytherins trying to get ahead and overlook the fact that something had been done to one of his students. But to make it realistic, he and Draco had searched and searched for a spell that sounded similar to one of the shield charms that would provide an adequate distraction. An 800 lb. angry gorilla was a good choice.

"Which spell were you trying?" Snape asked, looking critically at Blaise, who had the decency to look properly ashamed.

"The Scimna Irito one," he said. "Do you know what I did wrong?"

"Just a little mispronunciation," he said. "It's nothing that can't be reversed though. I'll let you go this time, Zabini, as you were merely trying to improve yourself, but next time check with me."

"Yes, Sir," Blaise said, grinning at the disgruntled Gryffindors who eyed Snape distastefully. If it had been one of them, they would have been lucky to escape with a weeklong detention and minus thirty points for unlawful use of spells on a fellow student.

"I think he wants a banana," Ron grinned, looking at the increasingly angry gorilla.

Tracey, who had been minding her own business, felt her head jerk up and her feet carried her over to the red head. "Let's peel all of these layers off you," she said, tugging on his robe sleeve, "like a banana and then split."

At that same moment, Hermione noticed her missing curls. "What happened to my hair?" she shrieked, placing a hand against the shorn edges. "Where'd it go?"

If there was one thing Snape excelled at, it was frightening students into submission. And he did just that. Within minutes Crabbe had been changed back into a human, Ron had gotten his robe and shirt back on that Tracey had gotten off, Tracey had taken off in complete mortification, and Hermione had been forced into her chair, the near foot long length of hair on the desk in front of her.

"Someone cut my hair off, Professor!" she seethed as the Slytherin head of house ignored her in favor of repairing the floor.

"While you may think it's a shame, Miss Granger," he said with a sneer, "I happen to think it's an improvement. My thanks to whoever did it."

She gaped like a fish and Seamus had to hold Ron back from bodily attacking the professor.

Draco grinned in triumph while Blaise shook his head. Draco had wanted to cut off her hair? He'd lived with it for five and a half years, what was another year and a half more? Obviously Draco had cracked more in that week then he had originally thought…

The blond turned his attention back to her, the now short-haired Gryffindor sniffling. Her nose crinkled up and she shook her head in response to something the Weasel had just said.

Draco though, was entranced. Her nose had a perfect slope to fit nicely into her shapely heart-shaped face. It wasn't pointy and it wasn't round. It was perfect.

Even as he watched, it quivered slightly as her hand reached up to touch the back of her hair again. It reminded him of a cute little, fluffy bunny rabbit that had just found a tasty carrot. If he squinted, he could make out very, very pale freckles dotted across it.

He blinked and looked from the girl's nose to the pile of hair that was now inside of a plastic bag.

Was he complimenting her _nose? _

It appeared he was. Snape made them sit in their seats as he lectured for the rest of the class, not wanting another repeat of miscast spells, so Draco looked at the cute little appendage throughout it.

First it had been hair. That was understandable… if it hadn't been attached to her head, it may have been considered pretty (also if she tried to do something with it every now and then). But a nose? A nose? He was having an adoration of her nose?

Was there a chance that he could cut that off too?

**Author's Notes:**

Another small disclaimer, _The Snow Queen_, one of the best fairytales of all times, was written by Hans Christian Andersen.

I'd like to thank the following wonderful people for their comments: LishaChan, NessaWayMalfoy, Smiley12341, MapleandPheonixFeather, Dramione-Fan 17, KatieGirl97, Cinna16, Blauman, CircleofPie, dramionerox, LucianGurl39, SlytherinPrincessxXx, Trory4ever, terri, Ijoan, twilightfaerie, 'sasecret, Really Cinderella, beautifly92, Butterbiscuits72, believe-in-faries, xxWARxx, Stormy Skies, Rei Sakura, ohsnapitzJess, Krazy Fan Girl, CrazyCrazyRainbowStar, Dhassy, TeddyBearKrista, coffeentoffee, Strawberries and Cream, LK-HoGwArTs-hEaDgIrL, Sharpie Stuffs, Gail Lucinda Autor, Michell-11e, Vahana Palm, LilPadfootChicky, Teresa, BlueBabyAquaGirl, Anonymous, (), TwixItUp, Crystal Snow, MokubaDoll, BewitchedSorceress, JustAReader, Bret, Gail Lucinda Autor , 44musicfreak44, DramioneFelson, 30percentalpaca, Ookami Otome, jtrem, LikeAMillionLittleStars, B-Mine, and Blood Angel-Dramione Lover.

And the Review that Made My Day. This time there were so, so many of you that fit the category, but alas I have to limit myself to two.

First, **TwixItUP **who actually took the time to review every chapter! That always makes me super happy. But I loved how you described yourself as a crazy, rabid, addicted fan and I look forward to more of your fun comments!

And for **Gail Lucinda Autor **who actually reviewed chapter 3 while chapter 4 was out (?) but was too amazing. Hark! A.D.L.S.H.A.A.R (A Damsel Laughing So Hard at Amazing Review). Thank you so much, hope to read more of your adorable abbreviations!

Hope to hear from you all on your thoughts this chapter!

And the poll question for this chapter:

**Many of you liked the snuck-in lyrics last chapter. If I were to sneak in lyrics again somewhere, which movie/musical/group would you like to see them from? **(Feel free to suggest specific examples!)  
**A: Mulan  
B: N*Sync  
****C: Wicked  
****D: Aladdin  
****E: Another Disney movie!  
****F: Other**

_Updated: March 6, 2011_


	6. Chapter Six

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Six**

Hermione was livid. She wasn't a vain person and really didn't care about her looks. But her hair… yes, it was a bush. Yes, it was almost always unmanageable. But she hadn't cut it (except for small trims) in years and it was her pride and joy. And someone had just hacked it off.

Harry and Ron were sitting nervously on either side of her at the dinner table, wary for any sudden, violent movements. She wasn't even reading a book to calm her down as she normally did when something upset her, but instead she was staring intently at the salt shaker and silently willing it to explode.

"H-Hermione?" Ron said quietly, deathly afraid of incurring her wrath, but he really needed the salt for his corn and he didn't want to just take it out from under her gaze.

She turned molten brown eyes to his, and he gave a squeak of terror. "N-never mind!" he stuttered, deciding that salt wasn't worth being hit over.

The brown orbs blinked and then softened as Hermione shook her head, no curls following the movement as they normally did. "I'm sorry, Ron," she apologized. "What were you saying?"

"Salt," he whispered, pointing a somewhat shaking hand at the innocent little shaker.

She handed it to him. "I'm not going to bite, you know," she said, taking a sip from her tomato soup.

"I dunno, you were looking pretty violent there for a while," Ron said around a mouthful of corn.

"If someone cut off all your hair I'd imagine you'd be pretty upset too," she huffed. "Do you know how long it took for me to grow it that long, Ronald?"

"Well, I did have my hair cut off earlier this week," Ron said, "and in a much more violent manner. And it's almost all grown back."

She sighed and twirled one of the shorn locks around her finger. "Madam Pomfrey said it would take almost a month for it to grow back to its normal length with the help of the potions. I know it's not the end of the world, I just wish I knew who did it and why."

"Well, it was obviously someone in our class," Harry said, joining the conversation. "And we can knock out a lot of people already… Zabini, Crabbe, Davis, and any of the Gryffindors. Doesn't leave us with many people left, huh?"

"I bet it was Malfoy!" Ron said, blue eyes lighting up. "The slimy git had Zabini create a diversion and then he cut off Hermione's hair!"

"I can't imagine Blaise going along with that," Hermione said. "And it really looked like it was an accident. Besides, what reason would Malfoy have to cut my hair? He's lived with it for over five years, he could last a year and a half more."

Ron grumbled and took a giant bite out of his roll. It was a shame they would never know of his momentary stroke of brilliance.

"Well then who?" Harry asked. "Parkinson?"

"She wouldn't do that," Ron said defensively.

Both Hermione and Harry turned to gape at him, and the Weasley felt the tips of his ears redden.

"I…Uh…She just doesn't seem like that kind of person…yeah…"

"Is that so?" Hermione asked, a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth. "And what insight to Parkinson might you have, Ron?"

His entire face now red, the boy turned and stared resolutely at his plate, but strangely didn't eat anything.

"Does this have something to do with your love potion?" Harry asked slyly.

"No!" he shouted, much too quickly, and Hermione and Harry exchanged grins. "It's not what you think!" he protested.

"And what are we thinking?" the girl queried, devious smile still on her lips.

"Absolutely nothing," he said, shaking his head vehemently. "Nothing at all. In fact, you're thinking about how delicious the food is and how you're going to proceed to eat it."

Giggling silently to herself, Hermione let the issue drop and started once again on her soup, Harry following suit. Ron remained rivaling the contents of Hermione's soup until dessert was served.

As soon as she finished her chocolate pudding, Hermione excused herself and headed for Gryffindor Tower, knowing she really needed to start reading the chapter for Transfiguration and working on her paper… it was due next week and she hadn't even cracked open the book due to the earlier events.

She mused the entire way back, thoughts going in circles around Malfoy. He had been acting strange lately. But she distinctly recalled seeing him by Crabbe so he couldn't have cut off her hair…right? Although she wouldn't put it past him to do something vile like that, it made no sense. Why all of a sudden now? Was his strange behavior causing him to do things he normally wouldn't?

And why was he even acting strangely? His father had gone to Azkaban earlier that year, but if anything he would be mad at Harry, not at her. Yet his anger was clearly directed at her and he made no show to hide it. Perhaps he had just cut if off to spite her?

Had it been any other class besides Snape's, then perhaps the culprit would have been uncovered. But the deed was done and there was nothing she could do. She could only be grateful that whoever had cut it hadn't gotten her head severed from her body. It had been a perfectly straight cut, and with her moving around, which she knew she had been, it was a wonder she wasn't dead.

Unless that was what the person had been aiming for.

Feeling suddenly very uneasy, Hermione pulled her wand from her robe pocket and gripped the piece of polished wood tightly, eyes darting around the corridor that she really hoped was as deserted as it looked.

She debated for a few seconds on whether or not to run back to the Great Hall and get Harry and Ron. Or tell Dumbledore.

What she had originally viewed as a harmless prank had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. If it had been an attempt on her life she had to know who was around to do it. Now.

And as she hurried along the halls, checking around each corner before continuing on, her thoughts always returned to the haughty blond Slytherin. Everything was a blur from that afternoon, but she recalled seeing him by Crabbe. However, his partner had been Goyle… and he had been standing nearer to the back. So had Malfoy moved? And if so, why? To get out of range of being identified as the culprit? To try to kill her from another angle?

All thoughts of working on Transfiguration had fled from her mind as she now tried to specifically remember the best as she could what had happened. But filling in the blanks with supposed theories was bad, as she could accidentally input a false memory she had.

The only thing that didn't make complete sense is why he would have tried to kill her in a classroom. With a ton of witnesses. Suppose she had died, there would have been a thorough investigation, right? Nearly everyone in the room would have been suspect.

But what if Malfoy, or whoever it was, had been so desperate they didn't care about the consequences? What if she had angered someone so much they would do anything to get rid of her? It's not like an unforgivable curse had been used. Maybe the curse used wasn't even illegal… they would have never been able to trace it back.

As soon as she made it to the Tower, Hermione scurried up the stairs and after changing into a pair of warm flannel pajamas and scooping Crookshanks up from the ground, she curled up under the covers, heartbeat doing double time.

She couldn't recall ever being this scared.

xxx

By the next morning she had calmed down slightly. There was a chance she was blowing this out of proportion and it had just been meant as a simple prank. However, that hadn't stopped her from writing down all of her thoughts and anything she could remember of the incident, focusing especially on Malfoy. He was the number one suspicious character in her book, as Goyle, despite being in a perfect position, wouldn't have had the brain cells necessary to try an attack like that.

It really was a shame though that her hair had been cut in the winter. She normally relied on it to keep her ears warm when she didn't wear a hat or earmuffs out. And the back of her neck would be cold now too. If this had to happen, couldn't it have happened in the summer? When she was always wishing for short hair?

Thank God for Parvati and Lavender though. The two of them had fixed her hair so that it didn't look like someone had taken a steak knife to her head. Now, it almost had a rather cute pixie cut, and it would be even better if her few remaining curls would decide to not rebel. But it'd all be back in about a month… hopefully before her family did Christmas photos.

Being that today was Saturday most everyone else was still asleep and she had practically free reign over the castle. She, sadly, also had no homework. She had finished her Transfiguration paper that morning when she'd woken up and had completed the other assignments earlier when they had first been assigned.

It would be nice if Hogsmeade were this weekend, but it wasn't until the next. And then two weeks after that she'd be going home to spend Christmas day with her family and then off to the Burrow to visit the Weasley clan. Harry would be at the Weasleys too, so she knew it was already going to be a lot of fun. Ginny had promised lots of baking, because even though Christmas was over the Weasleys made cookies up until the kids went back to school.

And Hermione couldn't resist baking cookies. Being that her parents were dentists they never really made sweets themselves, occasionally she'd find a batch of chocolate chip cookies as they were her mother's favorite, but never Christmas cookies.

But baking was also scaring her slightly. After she'd finally fallen asleep she'd had the strangest dream about baking cinnamon rolls with Malfoy and Harry and Dobby had been there playing with sock puppets. She couldn't remember much more than that, but anything involving Malfoy wasn't good.

Sighing, Hermione continued on her trek to the Great Hall. She hadn't really decided what she was going to do now that she was up, but breakfast seemed like a good place to start.

And it appeared that only one other person had had the idea to rise early and it wasn't even a Ravenclaw! Hermione found herself crossing the room and plopping onto the bench next to him.

"Good morning," she said, carefully picking up the pitcher of orange juice and pouring herself a glass.

"Oh, good morning Hermione," he greeted, setting the book he'd been reading aside. "You're up rather early."

"Yeah," she said with a sheepish grin. "I was having a really weird dream and couldn't get back to sleep. I thought I'd just get up and knock out the rest of my homework early."

Blaise shook his head. "You sure are one crazy girl. Haven't you ever just wanted to procrastinate and do nothing?"

Hermione was horrified. "That's… I can't even… I couldn't…"

Blaise burst into laughter and Hermione found herself laughing along with him. "I guess I do take it to an extreme," she said, rubbing the back of her head. "But I don't find homework a chore at all… it's more of a fun hobby."

"Uh huh," Blaise snorted, taking a large spoonful of his oatmeal. "If you like it so much want to do mine?"

"I think I'll pass, thanks though. You need to do it if you want to learn anything."

He stuck his tongue out her and ate another bite of oatmeal. Hermione couldn't help but wonder how someone so nice like Blaise had gotten sorted into Slytherin. He reminded her of a more mature Ron in some odd way. Maybe it was how much he ate, she observed as he polished off a muffin, but at least it was with good manners.

"So what're you going to do today?" she asked. "Did you have any plans?"

"Just homework," he said with a sigh. "I have to finish off that essay for Snape and do some stupid research in Divination on star alignment. But hey, no potions at least."

"You should just drop Divination," she advised. "You'll feel a lot better."

"The only other classes I could take in place of it would be Ancient Runes or Muggle Studies," Blaise said. "And I'm not smart enough for Runes and my father would disown me if I took a muggle course."

Hermione had caught the wistful gleam in his eye. "You want to learn about muggles?"

He looked uneasily around, as if looking for eavesdroppers, and then said, "Yeah. My nanny used to tell me all about them and they sound so interesting… But my father would never allow it."

"I could try and teach you some things," Hermione volunteered. "If you're interested that is."

"That'd be really awesome," he grinned. "Thanks, Hermione. Well, so my first question I guess would be: what's an amusement park? My nanny would talk about them all the time but she always seemed to be using made up words."

Hermione launched into an explanation, describing all her favorite rides, especially the bumper cars. While she was talking though, she couldn't help but feel a sense of déjà vu when she got to what a roller coaster was and how fast it went…

xxx

Draco tried to lie in bed as long as he could, staring up at the dark green canopy overhead and wishing the day would hurry up and it could be time to go back to bed again.

Blaise had awoken him at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning with his fumbling for his robes in the dark. And he'd been awake ever since, not wanting to get out of bed. Because outside of his bed was _her. _And she was slowly poisoning him. He didn't know what she'd done, but he was positive she had slipped something in his food. While his first guess would be she tampered with the love potion, she would never put someone else in her line of fire and since it was random she wouldn't have done anything.

First it had been her hair and now it was her nose. At least it was Saturday and he wouldn't have to see her at all, right? She could go hang out with her mudblood-loving friends and he could go hang out with Blaise.

Yes, he'd get up and go bother Blaise. Let him know what a git he was for waking him up. With a nod of conviction Draco roused himself from his very comfortable bed and donned his weekend outfit; black slacks and a green and black striped long-sleeve shirt.

Smirking in the mirror he grinned at his reflection. Was he looking a little flushed? Hmm, must just be warm in the dungeons. And with that he left the room and proceeded towards the Great Hall where he knew he'd find Blaise. The dark Slytherin always gorged himself on Saturday mornings and read a book at their table.

But Draco entered the Great Hall he was greeted by the sight of Blaise and Hermione. Sitting. Together. At HIS table.

His first reaction was anger, which gave way to curiosity, which went right back up to anger. How dare SHE sit at HIS table and talk to HIS friend? Her Mudblood self shouldn't even be near his table, much less sitting at it.

Draco put on the most intimidating scowl he had and stalked over, eyes narrowing in tunnel vision on Hermione. Her back was to him, but it seemed that she could feel the killer intent walking right at her. Otherwise, she just had remarkable timing. Before Draco had reached the table she had bid Blaise good bye and hurried away.

"Sheesh, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning," Blaise joked as Draco stiffly seated himself across from the other Slytherin.

"What was she doing here?" he managed to grind out, still glaring in the direction she had taken off in.

"We were just talking, chill," Blaise said. "She was telling me about roller coasters and tilt-a-whirls. It's really exciting actually. It sounds sort of like riding a broomstick really, really fast."

"I don't want to hear about anything that the muggles like," Draco scowled, biting harder than necessary into his apple.

"Fine, then I won't say anything about t it. But don't get on your high horse and tell me who I can and can't talk to. If I want to talk to Hermione then that's my decision."

Draco opened his mouth to speak and then closed it with a sullen look. That had been exactly what he had been about to say… could Blaise read his mind?

"Can you read minds?" he blurted out, his cheeks flushing a moment later. What on earth made him actually voice that thought out loud? Was the stress of actually thinking the Mudblood somewhat pretty finally affecting his brain?

Blaise seemed to have the same reaction. "Urm… no, Draco. I can't. Can you?"

"I think I need more sleep," was the reply as he lay his head down on the table. "Wake me up when the holidays start."

Blaise shook his head, an amused smile on his face, and took the moment to finish wolfing down a plate of French toast soaked in syrup and another glass of broccoli juice that the house elves always specially made for him. It was one of his favorites after all.

"Come on Draco," Blaise said, after he'd finished consuming enough food for about five people. "Don't you have homework to do?"

"I don't wanna," he said childishly. "It's just that stupid essay for McGonagall."

The dark boy blinked and then pinched himself. Draco never, _never, _acted like this. He was always cool, calm, collected and it was normally like talking to a stone; nothing rattled him. For him to be obviously so angry over Hermione, ask random questions, and now use a word that didn't actually exist except in slang? Something was wrong.

"Are you sick?" he asked, placing a hand on Draco's forehead. The other boy jerked and toppled off the bench at the sudden action.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Blaise said. "You felt sort of warm too."

"I'm not sick," Draco mumbled, getting up from the floor and glancing warily around to make sure no one had seen his fall. "Just tired. You woke me up this morning."

"Then maybe you should go back to bed," Blaise suggested, eyeing his friend with concern. "Come on, let's head to the common room. I need to get a start on my homework anyway."

"You don't need to bloody baby-sit me," Draco growled, shoving away from the table. "I can go myself."

Yup, something was definitely wrong. Was he really sick? Blaise had only seen Draco sick once before, and it was after he'd been buried under a pile of snow in their fifth year by revenge-seeking Gryffindors. He'd been a little out of it then too.

Oh, who was he kidding? Draco may as well have been on drugs for all the hallucinations and things he'd spouted off. Blaise really hoped it wasn't the case again… if Draco called him Fluffy one more time…

xxx

Draco was sick. Now, whether this was because of A. the potion that he knew nothing about B. The stress he'd been under or C. Maybe dealing with going outside the day before without a jacket because it was 'nice' out (it had been twenty-two Fahrenheit) it was anyone's guess, but most likely options A. and C. respectively.

Option A. because the potion did modify his emotions and made him more susceptible to actually voicing what he was feeling and C. Because yes, twenty-two is not a good temperature to only be wearing short sleeves outside for over an hour.

So by the time Blaise got back to the dorm, Draco was in bed and mumbling random things, most revolving around a dragon he had named 'Sparkles'. Blaise sighed and proceeded to yank off Draco's shoes and then pull the comforter up over him.

He really should go to Madam Pomfrey, but Draco hated going to the Hospital Wing, unless it was for exaggeration purposes. So basically, anytime he actually needed medical attention he opted to just last it out. It wasn't difficult though to pick up a bottle of pepper-up potion, so once Draco actually got sick enough to want the medicine Blaise would go get some.

For now though, he needed to make sure his friend didn't start having crazy hallucinations again. Especially in public. It was one thing to do them in the Slytherin's lair where no one would dare say anything bad about a Malfoy, but out there he'd be in serious trouble once he came to his senses.

With a deep sigh, Blaise settled down on his bed with parchment and ink to start working on his essay and watch his friend, who was hugging one of his pillows and calling it the name of the imaginary dragon. The essay Snape had assigned wasn't too difficult; it was all about Kelpies and some of their more famous and well-known forms.

"No, Sparkles! I don't want to go swimming with the pancake fish… waffle sharks are better."

Blaise visibly jumped when Draco suddenly started speaking loudly after nearly two hours of incoherent mumbles. "Hey, you waking up?" he asked, setting the essay down very carefully so the ink wouldn't run. "Draco?"

Draco rolled over and blinked up at Blaise. His cheeks were flushed and a light sheen of sweat shone on his face. But a large, nearly maniacal grin was the real cause for concern. "Fluffy… you came back…"

And without warning Draco launched himself upwards and pulled Blaise into a hug. "I thought you were gone forever, Fluffy! Sparkles thought he did something wrong. Did Sparkles say something to you?"

"I'm not Fluffy. I'm Blaise. And you're sick," Blaise said, prying Draco's arms off of him and pushing him back into his pillows. "I'm going to go get some medicine from Madam Pomfrey, so you stay here, okay?"

"You're leaving me, Fluffy? Why? Did I do something wrong?" Draco's lip came out in a pout and tears welled up in his eyes.

"I'll be back in a few minutes, I promise. And I'm Blaise, Draco. Blaise. Not Fluffy."

"Where are you going, Fluffy?"

"To the infirmary. Stay here, I'll be right back. Can you stay here for Fluffy?" Blaise asked, mentally smashing his face into his palm. Several times.

"Okay… Sparkles and I will wait here."

"_Please wait right here… please," _Blaise pleaded as he exited the chamber and made his way up to the common room. He'd prefer if he could let Pansy know what was happening, but the girl wasn't in the common room and he didn't have time to run all the way down to her room.

He must have made it to the Hospital Wing in record time and fortunately Madam Pomfrey was in. Unfortunately, she appeared quite occupied with what looked like a second year Hufflepuff that had mushrooms growing all over him.

"Uh, Madam Pomfrey…?"

"One moment please, Mr. Zabini."

"I didn't mean too," wailed the Hufflepuff. "I didn't think they were poisonous!"

"For the record," the nurse said patiently as she rubbed a cream on each of the toadstools, "don't go eating anything growing on the grounds. Especially if you find it in Hagrid's garden. Especially then."

"Madam Pomfrey," Blaise tried again, knowing that time was of the essence.

"Just a minute, please." To the younger boy she said, "This cream should kill the spores and they'll all go away, hopefully within the hour. Take this jar of it back with you and reapply it to any of them that don't start to shrink in over half an hour. And don't eat anything that's growing outside, all right?"

"Yes," he sniffled. "Thank you."

As soon as the boy toddled out of the room, Pomfrey turned her attention to Blaise. "And what can I do for you?"

"I need pepper-up potion," he said.

"Oh? You don't look ill."

"Not for me, my friend. He's got a cold."

"You should know, Mr. Zabini, that I don't give out medicine unless I see the patient myself. I can't trust all of you not to do something else with it."

"It's Draco Malfoy," Blaise said, hoping that would help clear it up.

"Ah, really now? Is he hallucinating again?"

"Yeah. I think he caught a cold when he was outside yesterday."

She pursed her lips and thought it over. Last year Blaise Zabini had dragged Draco Malfoy into the infirmary, the latter thinking he was seeing purple elephants and fish made out of pancakes. Her first thought was the boy had gotten into some type of psychedelic drug, but her quick exam showed that he merely had a very bad cold.

While she had never heard of someone becoming like that from just a common cold, she had to take into effect that because he was Pureblood there were possibly some odd genes that resulted from all of the same bloodlines. It's not like she hadn't seen other strange cases, like that Ravenclaw girl who threw up seaweed when she caught the stomach flu.

"All right, I'll let it go this time. You tell him though that as soon as he's feeling better I want him to stop by here, understand Mr. Zabini?"

"Perfectly, thank you very much."

And as soon as the little red bottle was in his hand, the Slytherin took off, hoping beyond hope that Draco had not left the dorm.

But Blaise had hoped too much. Because although he didn't see any crowds or hear laughter on his way back, by the time he'd gotten into the Slytherin dungeon he knew his worst fears had come true.

Draco, along with "Sparkles" (the pillow), was nowhere to be seen.

**Author's Notes:**

**EDIT: **I apologize for the delay everyone! For once it isn't my fault. has been glitchy and wouldn't let me edit the stories. I discovered today that only my HP stories won't let me edit them. So just now I tried to cheat the system with one of my non-HP fics and got it to work. So enjoy everyone!

Note to everyone since everyone keeps asking. This story updates once every **two **weeks on a **Sunday. **You can also do the math at the bottom where I post the update date of each chapter. And two weeks is really, really good for me with all of my commitments, so please respect the time frame. Be glad it hasn't ended up like OST or BME, eh? :p

How many Parenting Class references can you find in this chapter? –giggles- I really need to stop self-promotion. –hits head on keyboard- fjklads

On a side note, Fluffy is what I call my brother. It's quite the term of endearment (he has very fluffy hair :P) He calls me "The Short One", which I have taken to also be a coin of affection and don't let it bother me anymore. We also say "Let the Fluffiness/Shortness be with you". Yup, you all wanted to know that :P Any of you have odd names for your siblings? xD

And thank you all for your song lyric votes and suggestions! I may have to incorporate a few, some of them could be very, very funny!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter! Review please!

Special thanks to all the readers who took time to leave a comment. They are: Stormy Skies, coffeentoffee, SoSlytherin111910, SlytherinPrincessxXx, LishaChan, nightowl55, Gemsibob, Teresa, LucianGurl39, jtrem, BewitchedSorceress, RainingTearsandPixieDust, Stormy-Star-Gazer, EtherealPhoenix, 'sasecret, 44musicfreak44, Cheshire Darling, beautifly92, xXBrittyBabeXx, lemon trash, Dramione-Fan 17, LilPadfootChicky, Gail Lucinda Autor, chocomonkey1018, Hollow Life, Frosted Ice, Rei Sakura, soul03asylum, Smiley12341, Really Cinderella, DramioneFelson, Aurigae, Dhassy, Pixie Fireworks, Trory4ever, Strawberries and Cream, CrazyCrazyRainbowStar

And the _Reviews that Made my Day_: **SlytherinPrincessxXx**** – **You always leave such nice, long, thoughtful reviews. I have to say yes, I have most indeed seen AVPH and there may be some references coming up for it… be prepared for a ton of laughs :D I've been wanting to chop all my hair off, but I'm too afraid D: I love that your hairdresser is making dreadlocks out of yours! :p

**Stormy-Star-Gazer** - Recommending me to friends now, eh? Much love! I don't know when I'll have Draco and Blaise officially make up, but there will certainly be more fun, sweet moments in the future. And yay for PC fun! I'll try to get a "Professor Scary" in there for you :D

**Smiley12341**** - **Just awesome. That is all I have to say :D

_Updated: March 21, 2011_


	7. Chapter Seven

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Seven**

Without wasting a second, Blaise tore from the common room and ran down towards Pansy's room. Two pairs of eyes searching for Draco were better than one.

The girl was fortunately in, lying on her bed and painting her nails a vibrant emerald green. "Oh, hey Blaise," she greeted. "Do you think I should add a second coat?"

"No time for that," he panted, grabbing her arm and yanking her to her feet. "We have to go."

"Wait!" she cried, "I haven't done my other hand yet!"

But Blaise paid her no heed and continued to drag her up the staircase.

"Where are we going anyway? Get Draco if want to go do stupid guy stuff," she sniffed, blowing on her wet hand as they climbed.

"Draco is the reason you're here. He's caught a cold."

"Why would—Oh… That's a problem."

"You think?"

"Well, isn't he in his room?"

"He escaped on me while I was getting him medicine. And he's off with "Sparkles" again."

"The dragon?"

"The very one."

"So how are we doing this?"

"I'm going to head off towards Charms and the east wing. You take the Great Hall and proceed to the west. Circle back and then go north and I'll go south. He shouldn't be too hard to find."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "No Blaise, I think he'll be very hard to find. He'll probably only be sitting in the corner silent as a mouse."

"Yeah, yeah. Just go find him."

Blaise darted off towards the Charms wing, and was pleased to note no Draco and also almost no students. If he was lucky, most of the students would have decided to sleep in on the weekend and no one would stumble upon Draco.

Just as he was starting to slightly relax, he heard from down the hall, "Look, Sparkles! It's our new pet walrus! Isn't he cute?"

Blaise stopped dead in his tracks. There was only one person who would be addressing someone (thing?) named Sparkles. At least he hoped so.

And although he wished he could run in the opposite direction, Blaise bravely moved forward and timidly peeped around the corner.

Yup, there was Draco with the pillow tucked under his arm and clinging to the robes of… Slughorn?

Slughorn himself was rather baffled, yet very amused. The Draco Malfoy he had always known was very cold and very composed. This current one, running around in socks with his hair mused and carting a pillow was one he didn't think existed.

His first thought was Hermione's potion had had some type of negative side effect, but he had analyzed it himself and there was no way it would produce this effect. So it must of course be something else… but what? Had someone drugged the boy? It would certainly explain why he thought that Slughorn was a pet walrus.

"I think we'll call him Squishy. Do you like your new name, Squishy?"

"Err…" was all Slughorn managed to say, trying desperately to keep from laughing.

Blaise meanwhile had been inching towards the pair and hesitantly tapped Draco on the shoulder. The blond whirled around, a grin splitting his face. "Fluffy! Look, I found a new pet! This is Squishy!"

Slughorn raised an eyebrow and Blaise could feel his cheeks becoming warm. "I'm…uh…really sorry about this, Professor," he said, trying to yank Draco off of Slughorn, who only clung to the potions master tighter. "He's got a cold and it sort of makes him delusional."

The portly man merely chuckled and patted Draco atop the head. "It's quite all right, Mr. Zabini. I think this will give me a good many laughs for days to come."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the boy muttered, still futilely trying to pluck Draco away.

"Fluffy, why are you being so mean? I want to play with Squishy!"

"You. Have. To. Go. Back. To Bed," Blaise said with each pull. "Now let Squishy go."

"But he's my pet walrus. He'll get lonely if I leave him."

"I could accompany you back down to the dungeons if you'd like," Slughorn chortled. "I was heading to my office anyway."

Blaise brightened. "Really? That would be fantastic, Professor. Thank you very much."

"Ah, think nothing of it, dear boy. Come along, we'd best get Mr. Malfoy back to bed."

And so, making a very odd procession, the three of them shuffled off down the hall.

xxx

"I love food," Ron sighed dreamily, rubbing his stomach. "Food is the most amazing, wonderful thing in the world."

Hermione and Harry exchanged a look behind their friends back and rolled their eyes. Hermione had finally dragged the two of them out of bed and to lunch. Now they were just strolling around the castle since it was pouring rain outside and looking for something to do. While Hermione had of course proposed homework, she'd been shot down instantly.

Ron had decided they should stroll down into the dungeons and had vehemently denied that it had anything to do with a certain Slytherin girl. He just wanted a change of pace, he argued.

"Did you hear that?" Hermione asked, pausing on the step and peering downwards.

"That was my stomach digesting," Ron said proudly.

"No, no, not that… it sounded like someone laughing."

They all paused, stretching their ears. And then, they heard it: a shrill, slightly hysterical sound.

"That person doesn't sound sane," Ron whimpered, backing up and hiding behind Harry as the noise came closer.

"We… we should probably see who it is," Hermione said cautiously. "Maybe they need help."

"Do we have to?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, Ron. We're Gryffindors."

"And do Gryffindors have to be brave all the time?"

Hermione and Harry already had their wands drawn and were slowly advancing down the steps, the sound growing steadily louder. Ron sighed and followed.

At the bottom of the staircase Hermione and Harry both came to a sudden halt, mouths going slightly agape.

"What?" Ron asked, peering around Harry's shoulder. His mouth then too adopted a slack-jawed appearance.

A very drunk looking Draco Malfoy was clutching onto Slughorn, laughing like a hyena, his other hand gripping a pillow and his wand. Blaise Zabini was walking next to him, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there.

"W-what?" Ron managed to stutter out, drawing the attention of the odd trio.

Draco's eyes widened comically as he looked at the group, zeroing in on Ron. "Your hair is on fire!" he cried, pointing a shaking finger at it.

"Draco, that's not—"

Several things happened all at once.

Blaise was pulled frantically backwards by Slughorn, and fell to the ground with a thump, the word "fire" dying on his lips.

A burst of water large enough to rival a small lake spouted off of Draco's wand.

Hermione screamed.

Harry dove.

Ron was knocked over by a tidal wave and pushed all the way back up the flight of stairs, tumbling in the water and unable to gain ground.

Seconds later the corridor was silent except for the trickling sounds of water as it came back down the steps, pooled around their ankles, and continued deeper into the dungeons.

"I put the fire out, Fluffy," Draco said, clapping his hands together.

Everyone stared from various spots on the floor and Blaise flushed a deep red on both his and Draco's behalf. He was going to bloody _kill _him when this was over.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON MALFOY?"

Ron was back.

He stomped down the stairs, slipping on wet stone a few steps to the bottom and ended up in an ungraceful heap at the bottom. Everyone but Draco knew better than to laugh.

The blond Slytherin was by now rolling around on the wet ground, clutching his stomach and laughing so hard he was crying. His cheeks were flushed giving him actual color to his normally pale face and his hair was askew and clinging damply to his head.

Hermione was surprised when she felt a tiny bubble of… something… well up in her chest. He was actually sort of endearing looking right now, acting like a little kid. She then frowned immediately at the guffawing Slytherin. He wasn't fooling her. He was a (potential) murder suspect! She was not going to smile. She was not going to smile. She was not—

Drat, she could feel a smile.

"You… you…." Ron snarled, pointing a shaking finger at Draco.

Draco stopped laughing and pouted at Ron, sticking his upper lip over his top and adopting the look of a kicked puppy. "Why is he mad, Fluffy? I put the fire out."

Blaise picked himself wearily off the ground and stepped somewhat in front of Draco to protect him from anything the enraged Gryffindor might do. "Please don't take this the wrong way," he said. "Draco's caught a cold and it makes him a bit… delusional. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone."

"He just… He just…" Ron sputtered, rubbing his back from where he'd crashed into the ground. "He almost killed me!"

"Now, now," Slughorn said placating-ly, Draco once more attached to his robes. "I'm sure we can come to a consensus that will make both parties happy. Mr. Malfoy is not really himself right now, so it seems unfair to hold his current actions against him right now."

A soft pattering of footsteps, along with a "whoa, what's with the water?" cut off anything Slughorn was going to say. Pansy appeared above the Gryffindors a second later, staring at the scene with amusement. "Oh, looks like you found him Blaise."

Pansy continued down the steps, brushing past Ron and trying to ignore how his clothes were plastered across his body and accentuating the muscles in his arms from Quidditch. Oh, she was most certainly not admiring how adorable his hair looked dripping wet or the cute pink flush across his cheeks. Nope, she was not looking at him at all.

"What happened?" she asked as she reached the Slytherins, removing the bottle of Pepper-Up Blaise had accidentally left with her and pouring a small amount into the lid cap.

"Nothing really," Blaise said, toeing the ground. "Just a small misunderstanding."

Ron, surprisingly, nodded along with him. "Yeah, no problem. Come on, let's go back upstairs." He himself was definitely not looking at Pansy and how nice her legs looked in her skinny jeans and the flattering way her v-neck top allowed him the barest hint of cleavage he never got to see in their school uniforms. He of course was ignoring the way her ponytail was so messy but so endearing or the way she had only the barest hint of make-up on, making her brown eyes nearly glow.

Hermione and Harry exchanged a smirk as they saw the tips of Ron's ears redden tellingly, but followed their friend back upstairs, Hermione performing a drying charm as they went.

The Slytherins plus Slughorn remained below, as Pansy attempted to get Draco to take the medicine.

"It tastes yummy," she said, smacking her lips. "Come on Draco, open up."

"No," he mumbled, his face pressed into Slughorn's robes. "Don't wanna."

"Draco…" Pansy sighed. Looking at Blaise she smirked and said, "Fluffy wants you to drink it."

"Fluffy does?" Draco asked, showing his face.

"Yes, Fluffy does," Blaise said. "And Squishy does too."

"Indeed," chortled Slughorn. "Drink up, Mr. Malfoy."

Relinquishing his grip on the Potions professor, Draco took the serving of medicine and drank it in one go, scowling as smoke poured out of his ears. "It tasted yucky."

"But you'll feel much better soon," Pansy said. "Now come on, let's go tuck you in to bed with Sparkles. He looks sleepy."

Draco looked at the pillow. "Oh, I'm sorry Sparkles. You should have told me you wanted to go to bed."

Obediently, Draco allowed Pansy and Blaise to take him back to his dorm after giving Slughorn a huge hug goodbye. Once he was sound asleep beneath the covers, both Slytherins allowed themselves a sigh of relief and collapsed at the foot of Draco's bed.

"Once he's sane again I'm going to kill him," Blaise muttered, head in his hands.

Pansy gave him a side hug. "You're a really good friend to him, Blaise. I know he appreciates everything you do for him."

"Yeah," Blaise said softly, thinking of their argument just a few days ago. "Yeah…"

"Well," said the girl, rising to her feet. "I need to go finish painting my other hand. Want to meet in the common room and work on things there? That way if Draco tries to sneak out we'll see him. He doesn't need his next dose of Pepper-Up for three more hours so we have time."

"Sounds good. I need to finish my Charms homework."

Leaving Draco in his slumbering state and clutching "Sparkles," the two quietly exited for hopefully a more peaceful rest of the day.

xxx

"I can honestly say I'll probably never see something as bizarre as that ever again," Harry said, curled up in an armchair in front of the Gryffindor fireplace. "And I've seen some pretty crazy stuff."

Ron, despite the drying charm, still felt cold and was sitting right in front of the fire, the flames casting a rosy glow to his skin. "What the bloody hell was wrong with him? He thought my hair was on fire!"

"Blaise said he caught a cold," Hermione said, knitting a scarf for Dobby. "I guess he gets delusional or something."

"Wackiest cold I've ever seen," Harry snorted. "Gotta admit, it was awfully funny."

"You weren't the one hit by a tidal wave," Ron muttered.

"But at least you got to see Pansy," Hermione said.

"Yeah… Wait! No! Why are you bringing her up?" Ron demanded, turning scarlet as Hermione and Harry both laughed. "Why would I want to see Pansy?"

"Because you liiiikkkkkkeeee her," Hermione sing-songed. "Why, I still have no idea, but you were definitely checking her out."

"Was not."

"Was too," Harry argued.

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not!" Ron shouted, turning to face the fire.

"I think she might have been checking you out too," Hermione said slyly.

"Really?"

Both Harry and Hermione burst into laughter again as Ron turned even redder and pointedly ignored them.

"It's okay Ron, we won't say anything. Right, Harry?"

"Right. Of course."

"I don't like either of you," Ron said, pouting. "You're mean."

"Aww, c'mon Ron," Harry said, slipping to the floor and clapping Ron on the back. "Lighten up. We're only teasing. Would you feel better if you kicked my arse in chess?"

"I think I would."

Hermione rolled her eyes as her boys set up Ron's favorite game. She continued her knitting, relaxing as her fingers moved the needles and yarn. She'd needed something relaxing to take her mind off of everything. She was beginning to doubt that the accident that occurred was indeed meant to be murder. The more she thought about it, the sillier it seemed. If she had died, even if the spell had been legal, they were all supposed to be using the exact same two spells. She would like to hope that Snape would have confiscated everyone's wands and seen what the last spells were and for the wand that didn't have the shield charm of f Jelly Legs jinx that person would have been caught.

So unless she was dealing with an absolute idiot who didn't think things through, she doubted it was meant to be murder. However, her suspicions were still on Malfoy because he was probably the only one who hated her enough and had the skills to pull such a thing off. Although why he would want to do such a thing so randomly baffled her. He hated every part of her and made it clear, so wouldn't he want to take credit for cutting off her hair? Snape had approved and she would have thought he'd jump in and take the credit.

So what was he up to? He had been acting strangely, but again, she didn't know why. Draco Malfoy was a mystery. A mysterious, bigoted arsehole who unfortunately would not leave her thoughts. Damn him.

Harry's yelling and Ron's gloating of triumph rocked her from her thoughts and she turned her attention back to her knitting, frowning as she realized she'd muddled it all up while she'd been thinking. She really wasn't a multi-tasker by any means.

And thus passed a quiet Saturday afternoon for the Gryffindor trio until they retired to bed later that evening.

xxx

In other parts of the castle it wasn't so quiet.

Draco, a blanket pulled tight around him, had stumbled upstairs to the Slytherin common room where a few of his housemates were gathered. He made a beeline for his two friends, who were sitting in some armchairs by the fire. Blaise was scribbling something on parchment and Pansy was reading a book.

At his approach, Blaise looked up. "Oh, you're awake. Feeling better?"

"I'm freezing," he muttered, wrapping the blanket tighter as he sat down in front of the green-flamed fireplace. "Why is it always so cold in here?"

Pansy put her book down and reached over to feel Draco's forehead. "You're still running a fever. Does anything else hurt?"

"My throat, a bit," he said, looking absolutely miserable, pink flush making his whole appearance softer. "I didn't… do anything… stupid… did I?"

"If you don't consider calling Slughorn your new pet walrus and trying to put out Weasley's hair because you thought it was on fire, you didn't do anything," Blaise said, relishing in the look of horror that took over Draco's face.

"I didn't."

"You did," Pansy said, patting him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Slughorn was laughing it off. And I don't think Potter and Granger will say anything… at least, hopefully."

"They saw too?" Draco moaned, curling up in a ball. "Kill me now."

"It'll be fine," Pansy comforted, uncapping the Pepper-Up Potion for another dose. "Compared to everything that happened because of Slughorn's little project this is nothing. Now drink up."

Draco took the dosage with little complaint before he went back to curling up in front of the fire.

"Do you want to go to the Hospital Wing?" Blaise asked. "You look pretty awful."

"M'fine."

"If you say so," Blaise said, turning back to his Divination homework.

Pansy however closed her book. "Enough studying for me," she said. "I'm starving. Blaise, Draco, want to go get dinner?"

"Sure," Blaise said.

Draco only moaned.

Blaise sighed and after placing his homework on a small table – all of the Slytherins knew not to touch the older classmen's things – he pulled Draco to his feet and pushed him over into an armchair while Pansy conjured another blanket.

"You," Blaise said, pointing at a little third year in the corner. "Make sure he doesn't leave this room."

"O-okay," the boy stuttered.

"We'll bring you back some soup or something," Pansy said, throwing the extra blanket on top of Draco. "Get some more rest."

After they'd left, Draco was content to remain in the chair by the fire, still shivering despite his blankets. He hated feeling sick and he hated the hallucinations he was subject to when ill. And now to top it off he'd made a fool of himself in front of Potthead and his little group of friends.

And Granger had been there. Not that he cared about her. He hated her. He hated her and her golden curls that were finally gone and her cute little nose. Granger's face swam to his mind, but instead of the utter revulsion he normally felt he actually felt a bit better, picturing how her nose crinkled when she smiled and the way the curls would curl delightfully over her shoulders and frame her face.

He guessed she was actually pretty. For a Mudblood anyway. But since all Mudbloods were disgusting, vile creatures that didn't mean much. Right?

Snuggling further into his blankets Draco closed his eyes and hoped that after this cold passed the strange feelings he had for Granger would disappear as well.

At least he hoped so.

**Author's Notes:**

Baseball season has started! Go White Sox! –watching game right now—

On a sadder update, my life is becoming increasingly crazy. Guess that's what happens when you're graduating soon. So I'm going to do my best to still update every two weeks, but if I don't, please try to understand. On that note, to all of those sneaky readers using their reviews to ask about OST I don't really have an update for y'all. I started plotting out some future chapters, but I haven't had much time to write it. I'm hoping to be able to get a chapter out before my graduation, but I make no promises. Sorry.

For all of those lovely lurkers and those that favorite/alert BULL I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter/story in general. Please do take a few seconds to click the review button and give me your opinions. I love hearing them.

For those that did take that minute, thank you all so much. I really appreciate it! So thanks to: 44musicfreak44, Stormy Skies, Teresa, beautifly92, Frosted Ice, Isabella120, BlueBabyAquaGirl, Undercover bookworm, TwixItUp, StaticEcho19, Rei Sakura, eoz16, Walking-With-Scissors, Strawberries and Cream, coffeentoffee, Akitas4ever, ForeverRose123, KungFuWitch, alf05, 'sasecret, SoSlytherin111910, Trory4ever, LishaChan, greenie, OBLuvr13, terri, Smiley12341, Gail Lucinda Autor, B00kw0rm92, ccbloom7, Tanglenose, unicornusmc, QueenDottiy01, dhassy, CrazyCrazyRainbowStar, Alu, nightowl55, BewitchedSorceress, twistedartist, MokubaDoll, Dramione-Fan 17, ItsOnMars, WickedlyAwesomeMe, , smileylol, lalapop, frostykitten, ShelbySarleslovesWWE4EVER, LucianGurl39, SpontaneousQuack, rinanina101, Tealeavz, kitsune red, Pixie Fireworks, Pirate Doll, Moony et Candy, and bumble-beeoncrack

**Review(s) That Made My Day:  
****B00kw0rm92**** - **I would love to hear that story about Fish and Tadpole. Sounds veeerrrryyyy interesting :D I would also love to call my brother Pooky. I am sad I did not think of that name before.  
**Gail Lucinda Autor**** - **The images of "stalactites of mascara" easily made my day. If your friends are like that I'd love to meet them :D Talk about inspiration for future chapters! =p  
**unicornusmc**** – **Just had to say that I used to call my younger cousin Jeremy "Germy" when I couldn't pronounce it xDD Glad you like the story!

In honor of baseball season, just curious to see where all your loyalties lie. See you hopefully in two weeks!

**Are you a :**  
**A.** White Sox fan? –gives you a cookie-  
**B.** Cubs fan?  
**C.** Yankees fan?  
**D**. American League Team fan? (please say who!)  
**E.** National League Team fan? (see above)  
**F**. Doesn't watch baseball

_Updated: April 3, 2011_


	8. Chapter Eight

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Eight**

It was getting worse.

Draco was feeling loads better come Monday after a whole weekend of bed rest. Pansy and Blaise hadn't let him leave Slytherin all day Sunday so he'd spent it alternating between his bed and an armchair, taking his Pepper-Up Potion and working on homework. He hadn't had hallucinations since that first time, but once was more than enough.

He still had a slightly sore throat and his nose was running a bit, but he was carrying around a box of tissues and had plenty of hard candy so he was doing all right. Even though it was still only November he'd already pulled out his warmest sweaters and pants and was happily bundled up and not feeling the cold draft in the dungeons at all.

Unfortunately, the current bane of his existence also seemed quite happy. And that was not okay.

She was sitting at the same bench as him for Potions, but as far away from him as she possibly could. Slughorn had had the _brilliant _idea to partner them up for the rest of the semester with their love potion partners. Idiot. Like Draco wanted to be closer to the Mudblood.

Today she was in a dark red sweater with a red and gold hat pushed down over the little hair she had left and a gold glittery scarf wrapped fashionably around her neck over her robes. Draco thought the ensemble was actually quite cute. That is, if it had been on anyone else and not in such horrid colors. Red and gold were so awful together it always made him feel sick when they stared at him in mass quantities. Why did Gryffindors have to be so bloody proud of their stupid house?

They were supposed to be quietly working together on a sheet of questions pertaining to a new potion they would be brewing in the next week or so, but the two were of course doing their own and ignoring one another.

Draco sniffled as he blew his nose gently before trying to pick up his quill in slowly numbing fingers – why was it always so cold? – and fill in that seven poppies were needed for the potion: four red and three white.

"Still sick, Malfoy?" Granger asked quietly, her own sheet nearly complete. "Not having any more hallucinations now, are we?"

"Shut it, Mudblood," he growled, trying to ignore the slight blush forming on his cheeks. He didn't care if he didn't remember the incident, it was still horribly embarrassing. That's why he swore he'd never get so drunk he'd forget everything he did when he woke up the next morning, because no doubt he'd probably do something stupid.

"Aww; are you embarrassed?" she asked, a smirk gracing her lips. "Maybe I should let the school know about it. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of you thinking Ron was on fire, hmm?"

"Mudblood…"

"Or maybe I should explain that you call Blaise 'Fluffy.'"

"Mudblood, I am warning you—"

"Or better yet," she laughed softly, "about how you latched onto Professor Slughorn like a baby koala to its mom."

"GRANGER!" he bellowed, earning not only Hermione's attention but everyone's in the class as well.

Slughorn raised an eyebrow at him and Draco lowered his eyes to the desk, ignoring the little twitters of laughter from the Gryffindors throughout out dungeon.

"I could do all that," Hermione said softly, writing down another answer and not looking at him. "But it's not really in me to blackmail someone. Even someone that I loathe, like you. So I'll make you a deal, Malfoy. You stop calling me a Mudblood and I'll keep my lips sealed. Sound good? Otherwise I have no problem with adding my memory to a pensieve and sharing it with the school."

Draco glowered, quill shaking in hand from anger, hate, and humiliation. How dare she try to bargain with him! She was a lowly Mudblood, not good for anything. And yet he didn't doubt her. She was pissed at him from his antics last and through the love potion and would do whatever it took to bring him down a peg in revenge.

"Fine," he muttered, almost upsetting his inkpot.

"Fine, what?" she asked.

"I won't call you a Mudblood."

"So what will you call me?" she asked. "Bitch? Wench?"

He personally preferred those names but figured it would only incur her wrath and make her divulge some things he'd rather keep quiet.

"Granger," he finally said. "Good?"

"Good," she said, writing down another answer.

She smirked in victory as Malfoy scowled and returned to reading his book. She really hated blackmail and all those underhanded tricks. And she knew she probably never would tell… well, at least outside of some Gryffindor friends who she knew would spread it around the castle. But whoops, not her fault.

Still though, it was about time he got a taste of his own medicine. Besides, it's not like she asked for something that she didn't deserve in the first place. Everyone had the right to be called by their name. After all, she still called him Malfoy and not Arsehole-Prick (at least to his face) and she deserved the same.

She'd been trying to study him during the Potions class and make sure he still wasn't too sick. Working in the drafty dungeons would worsen his condition, but other than his soft nose blowing he seemed okay. Vocal cords were at least certainly still working.

The problem was she was trying to match this current Draco Malfoy to the one she'd seen Saturday afternoon with a wide smile and pink cheeks. She felt like she'd entered the twilight zone: there was no way that could have been the same person. It made her wonder what he would be like if he smiled more and laughed (not meanly) and if she would have hated him as much then. She didn't know if she could hate someone who looked so carefree and happy.

But unfortunately that wasn't the Malfoy she got to deal with.

She'd been studying him as well to see if she thought he might be the one to have cut her hair. She'd felt him looking at her a few times throughout the lesson, but she hadn't been able to catch him at it. She'd like to see him explain that one!

Honestly though, she was a bit freaked out by how he was acting. He hadn't really picked an argument with her or called her names since he'd hit her over a week ago and while she was happy about that it didn't make much sense. He always picked on her. Unless of course he felt guilty about his actions, although she didn't think that was the case. He never felt guilty about anything.

And it was as Harry said. He was starting to wear his emotions a bit more on his sleeve. Not counting when he was sick, just now he'd shouted at her. In a relatively silent classroom. Where everyone had turned and looked at them. She didn't know what it meant, but it probably wasn't good. For either of them.

Well, she thought, finishing up her last answer, there was no use worrying about it right now. Whatever Malfoy had going on he could figure out himself because she didn't care. He wasn't her friend and she couldn't even call him an acquaintance. So good riddance.

The bell rang a few minutes later and Hermione dropped off her paper at the front and headed out with her fellow Gryffindors for Herbology. The rain over the weekend had helped the Merlin's Beard plant they were harvesting grow even quicker so there would be a lot for them to do today before the poor plant died with the cold weather.

It really was quite pretty – dark purple vines with large white and somewhat fuzzy leaves. They could be used in a multitude of potions and medicines, but most commonly used in Dreamless Sleep Potions and other sleep agents. They would be brewing some of the potions after winter break and then deliver them to St. Mungo's for medical uses. Hermione loved it when they actually got to do something for the greater community and not just for the grade. It was always nice to help others.

"So," Harry said, sidling up to her with a pair of garden shears with Ron right behind him. "What were you and Malfoy talking about? Sounded pretty intense."

"I sort of blackmailed him," she admitted. Ron accidentally cut off part of the vine in surprise, before hastily looking around to make sure Professor Sprout hadn't seen.

"You what?" he nearly screeched. "You?"

"Yes, Ronald, me. I merely said that unless he stopped calling me that awful word I would share some of his actions with Hogwarts via pensieve."

"That's downright Slytherin of you, Hermione," Harry said.

She sighed. "I know. But I'm sick of the way he's been treating me and I've never had something like this to use on him before. Besides, you know I would never do something like that. If only because I think it'd hurt Blaise too."

"I don't like that you call him that," Ron muttered, more carefully cutting the leaves off.

"Why? You've taken to calling Parkinson Pansy," Hermione said. "And if you say "that's different" then I'm going to ask why and you're going to have to start talking."

Ron remained silent.

"That's what I thought," Hermione grinned. "Now come on, we need to finish this bush before class ends."

xxx

Ron didn't know how he got roped into this. He'd been eating dinner in the Great Hall, minding his own business, when Slughorn dropped by the table and asked if anyone would be willing to help him haul some things down to the Potions labs.

He hadn't paid any attention. Why would he want to go down there?

But then Slughorn had mentioned he'd give some extra credit points to whoever helped him. Hermione had discreetly kicked him and then given him "the look" which said "grades are everything so you better go get those points" and not wanting to face her glare the rest of dinner if he said no Ron had offered himself up.

So now, here he was, attempting to balance two very heavy crates and a very wobbly and breakable looking jar of some odd orange slime. He really hoped they didn't have to use it, it reminded him too much of Polyjuice Potion in a new, revolting shade. Slughorn had gone ahead with some books and was levitating another crate. Ron would have levitated them too, but Slughorn said the properties in them didn't react well with magic and he wanted to keep them as stable as possible for use in the potions.

It was cold, he was tired, and whatever was in the top crate really, really smelled. He needed the extra credit, sure, but this what not his idea of fun. And because he couldn't see over the top of the jar he had to walk very, very slowly so he didn't crash into anyone or accidently break the jar.

He estimated he was about halfway to the Potions storage room when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind him, moving much faster than his own. With his luck it was a Slytherin (who else would be in these freezing cold dungeons if they had the choice?) and probably Malfoy to boot. If that prat made him drop these supplies he'd kill him. Or maybe throw the orange stuff on him and see what happened. A smirk crossed his face. Oh, that would be interesting.

The steps sounded on the landing he just passed before they reached him. To his surprise, the person fell into step beside him.

"Weasley? What are you doing?"

"Parkinson?" he asked, trying to look at her from his peripheral vision. Why was she stopping to talk to him?

"That's my name," she said. "Why are you in the dungeons?"

"Oh, Slughorn wanted me to bring these down to the storeroom. They can't interact with magic and he couldn't carry them so I got stuck doing it."

"They look heavy," she commented. "Do you know what's in them?"

Ron, more than confused by this point as to why _she _was talking to _him, _tried to keep the conversation normal. "No idea. Something super strong smelling and gross looking, but that's it."

"How's your head?" she asked, changing topic on him. He still had bandages wrapped around his head to cover the bald spots so they didn't get infected. He thought it made him look stupid, but it was keeping the ointment in place and Pomfrey said it would help his hair grow back faster in those places. And he figured the bandages were better than walking around with bright green splotches from the ointment.

"Better," he said honestly. "It's still a little sore in some places but it doesn't hurt as bad. Madam Pomfrey said it should all grow back in about a month. Same as Hermione, which seems unfair since she has so much more to grow back."

"Well, that's good," she said, breath misting in front of her. "Guess I'll see you around then."

Ron was about to say good bye, when he felt himself step on his dragging pant leg. They were a bit long still – they used to belong to either Fred or George – and despite Ron's height he wasn't quite as tall as his twin brothers. "Shoot," was all he managed as he started to tip forward, the jar falling in slow-motion from the top of the crates.

It did one flip. Two. Three. The liquid inside churned unpleasantly and Ron felt his own stomach doing somersaults as he imagined what Slughorn was going to do to him when he found out his potion ingredient was splattered all over the floor.

But then a pair of hands neatly caught it as Ron finished catching his balance; the two crates miraculously staying his in arms.

"T-thanks," he said, staring wide eyed at the girl who had jumped about four steps down and caught it mid leap. "Er, nice catch."

She smiled back at him and Ron felt the tips of his ears redden. "I always wanted to play keeper," she said. "So I practiced a lot."

"Well, why aren't you then?" Ron asked.

"Change of plans," she shrugged. "Anyway, you said this had to go to the storeroom, right? I'll hold on to this until we get there; I think it's safer."

"You don't have to," Ron protested. "I'll be fine."

"Don't worry about it."

Pansy herself was confused with her actions. First Draco starts acting all funny, now her? She originally hadn't meant to stop next to him, much less strike up a conversation, but seeing the bandages made her feel guilty all over again.

And ever since she'd danced with him she'd been noticing him in a different light. Yes, he was still a Gryffindor with obnoxious colored hair and gross table manners without the smartest brain. But he was loyal to his friends no matter what. He could laugh and smile with anyone and whenever he wanted to. She used to mock his laugh, so hearty and carefree sounding, but she found herself drawn to it now when she heard him in the Great Hall.

She had always despised Weasleys on principle because they were blood traitors and they were poor and unfit to call themselves Purebloods. But she herself was starting to turn against Voldemort and his beliefs that they were superior because of their blood. It was Blaise's fault, really.

He had always disapproved of the Dark Lord's ideals and she had wanted to know why. He'd given her several books all on the history of slavery in America. Blaise himself was of African descent, one of the few at Hogwarts, but the color of his skin meant nothing to anyone: he was just darker.

But in America being black used to be really bad. They were treated as slaves – worse than House Elves she'd gathered at times – just because of their skin color. She'd read testimonies from Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, a Martin Luther King Jr., who fought for equal rights for blacks years after slavery was supposed to be officially over.

And she'd thought the whole thing was stupid. Why judge someone just because of their skin color? And slowly but surely the idea that Blaise had been proposing for years began to click. Judging based on skin color was the same as judging someone based on blood. And did blood really mean anything?

She looked at Neville Longbottom. He was a Pureblood but was a complete dunce in most subjects. Then there was Hermione Granger, a Muggleborn witch but the brightest one at school. She thought of all the half-bloods, namely Tracey Davis in her year, and wondered if there was really such a difference between them.

There wasn't, she decided. And once her mother died because she failed a mission for Voldemort and her father began to beat her for his own shortcomings she decided she'd finally had enough. Working under Voldemort didn't make anyone happy – not his Death Eaters, not Purebloods, and certainly not Muggles and Muggleborns.

But she couldn't really make that announcement for the world to know. Her father would probably kill her for disgracing their name.

Blaise had tried to slip Draco some of those same books, happy with his success at having "converted" her as he liked to say with a sly grin, but their blond friend would always harp he wasn't reading anything written by a blasted Muggle and throw it back at him.

And all of this led back to this predicament she was having with Weasley. Although she wished his hair wasn't quite so bright, she had to admit he was handsome. He was quite tall – almost 6' 0" already at just sixteen – and was very muscular and well-formed. He had the most endearing smile that always made her want to smile back, liked she'd done just a few moments ago. And he could (somehow, although she suspected it was the love potion) dance.

People always assumed her and Draco would end up together. At one point in time that would have been fine with her, but now she knew it wouldn't work. Draco was a close friend to her and very dear, but she would never love him the way people wanted her to. But with this darn Weasley she felt … something … she hadn't felt before. And it scared her as much as it excited her.

"Well, we're here," Ron said, his voice loud in the silence that had surrounded them as they continued down the stairs. A wooden door stood in front of them, "Potions Storage Supply Room" written in tarnished metal on the door.

Pansy switched the vase to one arm and twisted open the knob with the other, carefully pushing the creaking door open just in case there was something dangerously placed behind it.

"Did Slughorn say where he wanted them?" she asked, looking at the hundreds of ingredients placed in shelves along the walls. There were also a few potions by the look of the flask – probably extras someone had brewed, duds of some sort that the professors removed for now so no one would accidentally discover their effects before they figured out the antidotes, and some that were labeled as half-finished – needing ingredients that they'd been missing at the time of their brewing.

"He said on the right wall, second shelf somewhere," Ron muttered, glancing around for an empty space. "Ah, there it is," he pointed with his chin at about a two foot wide space. "I think I can probably keep the crates stacked."

Pansy had already gently placed down the orange liquid and Ron made his way to put the heavy crates down. But as luck would have it he tripped once more over his pants leg and stumbled forward, somehow managing to smash the crates into the open hole but making the whole shelf wobble.

A dark blue bottle that had been sitting just a bit too close to the edge tipped unceremoniously over the very top shelf. Pansy and Ron could only both stare up in horror as the bottle hit against another shelf going down and burst open, a soft yellow potion cascading down upon both of them and a good part of the storage room.

Pansy screamed and covered her head as the potion hit her and Ron unsuccessfully tried to back up and avoid it. When he didn't feel his skin being eaten away or intense pain he cracked one eye open, thankful when his vision still worked. Pansy uncovered her head as well, staring at the remains of the potion bottle warily.

"What shelf did that come from?" she asked, gingerly stepping forward to pick up the largest piece that would hopefully have a label.

"Er…" Ron craned his neck upward, feeling his face flush uncomfortably when he saw what it was. "Thenoknownantidoteshelf," he mumbled.

"The what?" Pansy asked, turning to look at him.

Both their mouths fell open at once. "What is on your head?" Pansy asked at the same time Ron said "Why does your forehead say 'confused?'"

Pansy stared at him for a second longer and then turned her attention to the label in her hands. "An attempt at a reading emotion potion," she read. "Supposed to be able to tell how people around potion taker (potion to be taken by rubbing on forehead and wrists) are feeling for about fifteen minutes. Instead, makes potion user's own emotions display on his forehead. No known way to stop it."

She looked up at him, the word written in dainty cursive turning to read 'angry.' Ron felt himself whiten in fear and his turned to 'scared.'

"What have you done Weasley?" she shouted, waving around the shard of the bottle. "There's no antidote!"

'Apologetic.' "I'm sorry! It was an accident! I'm sure Slughorn can fix it."

"The reason it was in here is because no one can fix it!" she screeched, eyes narrowing to slits. "Bloody hell, Weasley! I can't be seen like this!"

'Hopeful.' "We could wear bandanas over them," Ron suggested. "And I can just wrap a bandage around mine."

'Mortified.' "Oh my God… what do I do?" she mumbled, ignoring him and sinking back down to her feet, one hand pressed against her forehead. "I can't be seen like this."

Ron meanwhile was actually being quite smart and had taken an empty potions flask and managed to fill a good portion of it with the potion still all over the floor. A quick "_scourgify_" took care of the rest. "Here," he said, pulling his tie off and offering it to Pansy. "You can use this to cover it for now. I'll go bring this to Slughorn and see if he can figure something out."

She shook her head. "The last thing I need to be seen with besides this is your tie, Weasley. What would people think?"

When she looked up though, the word 'touched' was written and Ron smiled hesitantly back, his reading 'thankful.'

She wished she had her own tie, but she hated the darn thing and had dropped it in her room before dinner started.

"Well, come on," she said, rising to her feet and reading 'determined.' "Let's go find Slughorn and see if he has any advice. Maybe he can find something to help us."

Ron followed her out of the room, 'pleased' on his forehead at the use of Pansy's "us." Despite the circumstances, he was actually happy to spend some more time with the Slytherin girl.

She really didn't seem all that bad and, he thought, 'loving' appearing on his head, he was sort of starting to like her.

xxx

"I wonder where Ron is," Hermione mused, sitting in her favorite armchair in Gryffindor and taking notes for her Ancient Runes paper. "I didn't think dropping those things off would take so long. He really needs to start on his Charms homework."

"Maybe he ran into Parkinson down there," Harry said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Hermione snorted. "Don't be silly, Harry. He probably just got lost. Besides, you shouldn't be teasing him about his crush when you've made no headway on your own."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, don't pretend," she said, glancing up from her book. "You know who."

"Enlighten me."

"Let's see," Hermione said, tapping her quill to her lips. "Very brave, a great Quidditch player. Has adored you since forever. Has beautiful red hair and freckles. A ton of Gryffindor spirit. Oh, and she's Ron's little sister. Does that clear anything up?"

Harry's face had by now had a light red dusting and Hermione smirked. "Yeah, I guess that clears it up," he mumbled, concentrating very hard on the Charms book he hadn't been paying the slightest bit attention to a few seconds before.

Hermione sighed. "Honestly, Harry, when are you going to say something to her? I know you like her."

She looked across the common room at the girl in question, who was chatting with Dean and demonstrating with very exaggerated gestures some moves for Quidditch she'd been practicing. Harry followed her gaze and a soft smile graced his features as he looked at her.

"Look at you," Hermione said, gesturing at his face. "You're completely in love."

"She's Ron's sister."

"Harry, that cannot still be your excuse," she sighed. "Look, if you really like her you should let her know. Soon. Or she's going to move on to someone else, like Dean."

He turned frightened eyes upon Hermione. "But Ron would kill me."

"Psh, I'm sure he'd rather have you dating her than anyone else. At least then he can keep you in line," she grinned. "I think Ron would be happy for both of you. If you're so concerned why not just ask him? You act like he's going to blow your head off or something."

Harry gave a slow nod, watching as Ginny overbalanced and fell into Dean's lap, laughing and blushing prettily as she gave him a hug and moved back to her own seat.

Hermione was right. He'd have to ask her out. Soon.

He just had no idea how.

**Author's Notes:**

And we finally get to the Harry/Ginny romance, my second favorite HP pairing. And I know I said the R/P would be kept low-key, but I think they are so freaking adorable I can't help it. They're writing this themselves, I swear!

It was a bit more of a serious chapter, I guess, but we can have insane laughing scenes all the time. I promise you though, what I have planned for next chapter will have you rolling on the floor :D

About the next chapter … I don't think I'm going to be getting it out in two weeks. I know, I know. I barely got this one out for today though and I'm so backed up with graduation stuff and events that I've had no time to work on anything. So I probably won't be updating the next chapter for 3-4 weeks. If I somehow come into a lot of free time that will change, but there's your heads up. Sorry :(

And because I'm super short on time I'm not going to list everyone, but please know that I love you all and appreciate the time you take to leave a review. I love reading your comments and they always brighten my day. So please review!

_Updated: April 17, 2011_


	9. Chapter Nine

**Brewing Up a Little Love**

**Chapter Nine**

Ron and Pansy quickly made their way to Slughorn's office, Pansy nervously glancing around every corner for fear someone might see her. One of her hands covered her forehead despite how absurd it probably looked it had to be better than people reading her emotions.

Fortunately not too many people wanted to wander around in the cold dungeons so they made it to the office with no trouble.

But the trouble started when they realized Slughorn wasn't in.

"He probably went to his own quarters," Ron said, leaning against the door. "I'd want to grade papers by a warm fireplace too."

"This is ridiculous," she muttered, 'peeved' appearing on her forehead. "He should be here. It's not even seven yet!"

"Warmth," Ron reminded her, shivering himself. "Slughorn's got the right idea."

"Okay, I get it," she said, exasperated. "But that doesn't help us, now does it?"

"We'll just have to keep it quiet until tomorrow and see him then," Ron said, already inching some of his bandages down to cover up the word that read 'calm.' "Did you want my tie? You can probably charm it to another color or something."

"Fine," she snapped, holding her hand out. "Give me the bloody thing."

Ron smirked as her word changed to 'annoyed' while she mumbled a charm, turning the red and gold tie to a solid black. She tied it around her forehead and tried to flatten out her bangs as much as possible to hide it. "Is it horribly obvious?" she asked, making sure her hair in the back flowed smoothly over the bump.

"I don't think anyone will notice on first glance," Ron said honestly. It helped that the tie blended in with her hair, but there was a dark black band where her normally pale skin was. But he supposed she preferred that over her emotions being broadcasted to everyone. Everyone in Gryffindor might tease and poke fun at him, but in Slytherin he bet that sort of thing could be used as blackmail.

"Do you want to go see Slughorn tomorrow morning?" she asked. "Meet by his office at like seven?"

Ron resisted groaning. He didn't have class until nine on Tuesday mornings, but Slughorn's first class started at 7:30 and if they didn't see him before they wouldn't have a chance until almost dinner. And he wouldn't make her go by herself. Even though he hated to admit it, it was his fault they were both stuck in this mess. He was just thankful Pansy was being this understanding about it. He'd honestly expected her to hex him in anger.

"Yeah, sounds good," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow then?"

She nodded. "Well, good night."

"Good night," he called after as she turned away and headed towards Slytherin, which he knew from his second year was up a flight of stairs and then down the right hand corridor. He let her get a bit ahead and then started climbing up himself, wondering what Harry and Hermione would say if they knew Pansy had the same charm on her. He blushed, already picturing their teasing.

He'd always had a bit of a crush on Parkinson since their fourth year when he'd seen her out of her black robes and actually wearing a pink dress. He hadn't believed Slytherins even knew what pink was.

But also at the Yule Ball he'd seen a whole different side to Hermione as well, and felt the beginnings of attraction stir for her. He'd sat on those feelings all through the year and fifth year, until eventually he realized they were dying away. Hermione would always be his friend first and he loved her for it. He still admired her, still personally thought she was one of the prettiest girls at Hogwarts, but he realized she was too good for him. She was incredibly smart and clever while he scraped by – she needed someone who could match her on that level. And that was fine with him; he would always be her best friend and be there to beat up her boyfriend (when she had one) if he was an arse.

He smiled wryly as he realized his own thoughts had gotten off track. How does that even happen? He'd been thinking about Pansy, that's right. After that night at the Yule Ball he'd started to see her more and more. He felt his gaze drawn to her in class sometimes or he'd seek her form out at dinner. She really was very pretty, with her pale skin that even gave Malfoy's porcelain look a run, and dark hair and dark eyes. She was taller in stature than most of the girls in Gryffindor – he'd guess she was almost 5'7".

But Slytherins were off limits to Gryffindors. He was sure if he ever even did say "hi" she'd laugh at him and make fun of how a Weasley thought he was permitted in her presence. So he never acted on what he thought could maybe have turned into a relationship of some sort. It was the one thing he truly despised about the house system. Yes, it made you close with your housemates, but it tended to alienate you from making friends in other houses. And the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin was legendary and no one dared break those boundaries.

Ron often, in moments of deep thought and contemplation, what Tom Riddle might have been like if he'd had people like the friendly Gryffindors or the loyal Hufflepuffs he knew to hang out with rather than just Slytherins. Would Lord Voldemort even exist then? Would a little inter-house unity have stopped a boy from becoming a mass murderer and monster?

And there he was, getting off track again.

Since the love potion incident Ron had been noticing Pansy more and more. It was hard not to, as every time his head twinged he was firmly reminded of her and her love of his hair. Despite the fact he'd been under the influence of a potion, he'd had fun dancing with her and when she had collapsed in his arms and he'd carried her back to Potions he'd felt kind of like a knight returning from battle after rescuing the damsel (a word now forbidden around Harry).

And now, he discovered, she had another side to her other two sides. That girl could catch! There were no girls on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and Ron now wondered if that was because it was deemed improper because so many of them came from high ranking Pureblood families. But the way she'd moved to catch that bottle… he was impressed. Maybe if she were the Slytherin keeper the game might actually be more fun without relying on just the battle between Harry and Malfoy chasing the snitch for entertainment.

If she joined the Quidditch team… well, that would be just totally awesome. Now he just had to somehow convince her.

But before that… his face darkened as he approached Gryffindor, hoping that Hermione wouldn't be observant as always and notice the bandage wrapped around his head. Maybe if he just snuck in real quick and headed up to his bed he could put it off for at least a few hours.

"Ron? Did you injure yourself again?"

Ron swore silently from his ninja-crouch position at the bottom of the boy's staircase. He'd been so close!

"Er, no," he said, trying to get to his feet without seeming suspicious. But of course he managed to step on his pants again and pitched forward, ending up in a somersault and coming to a stop by Hermione's feet.

She looked amused and Harry snickered behind his Charms book. "Then why do you have a bandage around your forehead?"

"Oh, I bumped it when I fell earlier," Ron said. "I just thought I'd cover it, you know?"

Hermione took on a concerned expression. "Are you all right? You didn't hit your head on stone, did you? That's awfully dangerous. Let me see it." She reached forward and Ron scuttled backwards like a crab. She raised an eyebrow, smile tugging at her lips. "Is there something you aren't telling me, Ronald?"

"Of course not," he said, backpedaling even further until his back hit the wall. Bollocks!

"Ron, whatever it is you're hiding, you're doing a horrible job. Since you've now made it obvious there's something there I'm not letting you leave until you satisfy my curiosity. Take off the bandage."

Harry had abandoned his Charms book and now stood next to Hermione, both of them seeming like looming giants to Ron, who felt like a poor little rabbit about to be eaten. But, he figured, so long as they didn't take a good look at Pansy (or follow him tomorrow morning) they had no reason to suspect she had any part in this.

So with minor trepidation he unwound the bandage, his forehead happily reading 'nervous.'

"What on earth is that?" Hermione asked, reaching out to touch the cursive letters, which morphed beneath her fingers to 'anxious.'

"I sort of spilled a potion on myself," Ron said, the words changing to 'calm' as he forced his breathing rate to go back to normal. "It was a dud and shows the user's emotions… I was going to go to Slughorn but he wasn't in his office." Ron gave himself a mental pat on the back for not saying "we," but unfortunately the word changed to 'proud.'

"Why are you proud now?" Hermione asked, raising another eyebrow. "There's more to this story, isn't there?"

"Of course not!" 'Panicked.'

"Your forehead is giving you away."

"Argh!" Ron yelled, before burying his head in his knees. "Now you can't see it," came his muffled voice.

"Ron, we're just looking out for you," Hermione said, placing a hand on his shoulder and then squeezing it tightly. "You don't want us to think you're hiding something from us, do you?"

Ron mumbled something into his knees.

"What was that?" Harry asked, kneeling next to him.

Mumble.

"We can't understand you Ron."

He pulled his mouth away from his trousers but kept his forehead hidden. "Pansy was with me."

"Well this is interesting, isn't it Harry? Ron was with Pansy? What could this mean?"

"Oh, shut it," Ron muttered, although as he looked up at them 'embarrassed' on his forehead. "I like her, okay? Can we drop it now?"

For one of the first times in his life, Ron had left Hermione speechless. She merely gaped at him, mouth trying to form words and only little puffs of air coming out.

"Are you going to tell her?" Harry asked, regaining his own vocal cords first.

"Are you crazy? You never tell a girl you like her. It makes you look stupid," Ron said vehemently. "Besides… she'd probably hex me."

"Well, you don't know till you try, right?" Harry suggested helpfully.

"Just leave it," the redhead said, climbing to his feet. "I'm tired so I'm going to turn in. Good night, everyone."

"Ron, it's only nine," Hermione said, finding her voice.

"Early to bed, early to rise, right?" he said, letting out a loud and obviously fake yawn while he stretched.

"You and Parkinson are going to see Slughorn early tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked.

Ron only groaned.

"Go get some sleep, Ronald," she said, mussing his hair. "You have to make sure you're well rested for your date tomorrow."

"'s not a date," he mumbled, but gave a small wave and started up the staircase.

"I'm going to head up too," Harry said, grabbing his abandoned Charms book.

"I feel like the world is going backwards or something," Hermione muttered, placing a hand on her head to check her temperature. "Why are both of you going to bed before _me_?"

"Uh, it's a guy thing," Harry said, inching towards the staircase. "Night, Hermione."

"Guy thing?" she repeated once both boys were out of her sight. She glanced around the common room, to see it almost completely empty.

"IT'S ONLY NINE O'CLOCK!" she bellowed. "WHY IS EVERYONE GOING TO BED?"

The few that were still awake backed their chairs nervously away from the suddenly crazy looking witch. She huffed and sat down in her armchair with a thud, making it scoot back a few paces. What was with everyone tonight? Was she the only one still normal?

Scowling and realizing she actually didn't feel like doing homework right now, Hermione gathered up her books and parchment and stomped up to her dormitory to curl up with Crookshanks – at least he understood her.

Over in the boys' dormitory Ron and Harry had both changed into pajamas and were in their respective beds, the only light coming from Neville's small nightlight across the room. He was already sound asleep in bed, while Dean and Seamus were downstairs playing gobstones.

It was all quiet… peaceful… tranquil… nice…

Ron took a nice, deep, calming breath and felt his heart slowdown, relaxing in the soft blankets and squishy pillow. His face didn't feel like it was on fire anymore; more like it had been gently kissed by the sun and he felt all warm and happy of having finally admitted his growing feelings aloud.

He took another deep breath, relishing the serene silence and prepared to go to sleep, so happy it was so beautifully quiet and noiseless and he could just relax and sleep peaceful, wonderful dreams in the silence of his quiet –

"Ron?"

Room. His once beautiful, quiet room.

Maybe if he just lied still Harry would think he'd already fallen asleep.

"I know you're awake."

Or not. It had been worth a try.

With a grumpy sounding "what?" Ron rolled over to face his friend, who was staring at him, slightly unfocused due to his lack of glasses.

"I need to ask you something."

"I sort of figured that."

Harry flushed slightly, before saying quietly, "Well, since you admitted to liking Parkinson I thought I should tell you about who I like. And… and see if it would be all right if we dated. Maybe."

Ron raised an eyebrow, forehead reading 'confused.' "You like someone?"

"Er, yeah. I have for a while now, actually."

"It's Hermione, isn't it?"

"What? No! Not that I don't love Hermione," he quickly added as even with his poor eyesight he saw Ron's eyes narrow. "It's just I think of us as having a more… platonic relationship."

"Well, if it's not Hermione why do you want my permission? You're free to date whoever you want. You're Harry freaking Potter after all, right?"

"Well yeah, but—"

"Who exactly are we talking about here?" Ron asked. "Wait, I want to guess."

Harry had a feeling this wasn't going to end well.

"Is it Lavender?"

Harry resisted the urge to shudder. Lavender was a nice friend, but definitely, definitely not. "Nope."

"Parvati?"

"No again."

"Luna?"

Again, he liked her very much as a friend but not a girlfriend. "Definitely no."

"Bulstrode?"

"What? No! She broke my ribs!"

"You never know," Ron said with a chuckle. "Greengrass?"

"No to both of them."

"Davis?"

"No."

"Hannah Abbot?"

"No."

This line of questioning went on for nearly fifteen minutes as Ron named _every _female at Hogwarts (including, to Harry's revulsion both McGonagall and Trelawney) except the one Harry actually liked.

"I have no idea, mate," Ron said honestly. "I don't think there are any more girls here." Ron's eyes then widened to the size of galleons. "It's a bloke, isn't it? How could I not have seen this?"

"It's Ginny, you idiot!" Harry all but screamed, his face now bright red.

"It was the panda's fault!" Neville did scream, shooting up in bed. "I swear I didn't eat your pink bamboo!"

He blinked and the three of them all stared at one another awkwardly.

"Sorry, Neville," Harry apologized after a few seconds. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

"Is everything okay?"

Ron said "no" at the same time Harry said "yes." Neville only looked more confused.

"What's on your head?" he asked Ron, watching as the word 'angry' turned to 'embarrassment.'

"Potions accident," he grumbled. "But the important thing here," he turned back to Harry, "is what did you just say?"

Harry was sitting up now too and licked his lips nervously. "That I want to date Ginny."

"No no no no no! Absolutely not! That's my baby sister!"

"Your baby sister who was flirting with Dean," Harry said.

"What? That bloke is on this too? Let me at him! I'll beat both of you up!"

Neville, strangely enough, was the voice of reason. "Ron, sit back down," he all but commanded, as Ron was stomping angrily towards the door. "Now."

Ron saw something scary in Neville's eyes and complied, still muttering.

"Now, what I see here," Neville said, "is some missed communication between you two. Harry, it sounds like, is asking you permission to date your sister. Technically he doesn't have to do that, but Harry saw it as the polite thing to do. You, instead of acknowledging his request, immediately dismiss it without any reason. Why?"

"She's my baby sister," Ron pouted. "She's not supposed to date. Ever."

Neville sent Ron a comforting smile. "Ron, everyone grows up. Your sister can't remain under your wing forever. And besides, what better choice in a boyfriend than Harry? He's your best friend, you know he'd never hurt her and always be loyal, and you could always kill him if he did do something."

Ron was slowly nodding along, forehead even going as far to say 'accepting.' Better Harry than Dean where he could keep an eye on the two of them more and not worry about them snogging for hours in some broom closet. He knew Harry would never purposefully hurt his sister… who could be a better choice if Ginny had to date?

"Very well," he said, "I give my permission. However," he said, cutting off Harry's whoop of joy, "you must ask her out tomorrow. In the Great Hall during lunch."

"Okay…"

"In front of everyone. While singing. Loudly." His forehead now read 'mischievous.'

"What? You can't be serious!"

"I just want to make sure you're willing to do anything for my sister, Harry. And that includes being a part of potentially embarrassing situations."

"But I can't sing!"

"I've heard you in the shower," Neville said, chuckling. "You actually have a very nice voice."

"What am I supposed to sing?"

"You're Harry Potter," Ron said with a grin. "You'll think of something." A pause. "And I'm off to bed. G'night all, pleasant dreams." Within seconds his snores filled the room. Harry was insanely curious how one could just shut off like that while his blood was pumping and face still glowing red.

"You'll do fine, Harry," Neville said, already snuggling back down in his covers. "You always come up with something."

"Yeah," Harry said, lying down as well. "Right."

xxx

Morning dawned much too quickly in Ron's mind, but he dutifully got out of bed, brushed his death, got dressed, and tied a bandage over his forehead. With a last look at the room's sleeping occupants (although Harry appeared to be in the throes of a partial nightmare muttering 'but I can't sing… no, no, please Professor Snape, I didn't mean it. That song wasn't for you!') he left to go meet Pansy at Slughorn's office.

She was waiting for him on the landing before his office, a long sleeved robe and what looked like leggings underneath her skirt helping against the cold. He noticed his tie was still wrapped around her forehead.

"So how'd explaining that go?" he asked in way of greeting.

She grimaced. "So far no one knows. I went straight up to my dormitory and went to bed. I'm hoping to get it solved before they even figure anything is amiss. You have the potion?"

Ron patted his pocket. "Right here."

Nodding, she started towards Slughorn's office and Ron followed. They found their portly professor humming as he restocked the basic potion cabinets in the background for his incoming class of first years.

"Professor?" Ron said, trying not to startle him, "can we talk to you?"

Slughorn looked up, face still jolly if a bit confused by the pair addressing him. "Of course, of course," he said, putting down the spider legs. "What can I do for you two?"

"You know how I delivered some potions to the storeroom last night?" Ron said.

"Saw them there this morning. Thank you very much for making sure they got their safely."

"Well… Pan— er, Parkinson, ended up helping me. And when we were down there I accidently upset a shelf and this potion fell on us." Ron pulled the vial out of his pocket along with the label and handed it to Slughorn.

"We have these now," Pansy said, gingerly untying her headband and pointing to her forehead which read 'upset' and Ron's read 'hopeful.' "We hoped you might know of a solution."

"Hmmm," Slughorn said, turning the bottle in his hands. "What shelf did you say it fell from?"

"The very top one… maybe seven high?"

"That places it as at least ten years old… I'm afraid to say I don't know of an antidote right now, but I'm sure I could probably figure something out in the next few days."

"Days?" Pansy repeated, eyes glinting dangerously.

"These things take time, my dear," Slughorn chuckled. "It was up there for a reason, you know. But I'm sure I'll be able to come up with an antidote. There's not much a student can do that we teachers can't undo."

"Thanks very much for your help, Sir," Ron said, tugging his bandage back down. "Just… do you think you could try to make it a top priority? Please?"

"I'll do my best," he promised, as both thanked him again (Pansy's sounded much more forced) and they left. He chuckled to himself once they were out of earshot. My my, what had he done? First his success with not just Malfoy and his darling Hermione, but between Hermione and Zabini, and now between Mr. Weasley and Miss Parkinson. He was developing inter-house unity like none had before.

He deserved a gold star.

xxx

The day passed by in agonizing slowness for one Harry Potter. He'd had horrible, horrible dreams all night where his voice shattered windows, he was booed at, Ginny turned him down, he sang to Snape, and for some reason Millicent Bulstrode was his girlfriend instead.

He had an inkling of what song he might sing. It had come to him in the one positive dream he'd had last night. The problem was he was pretty sure he was meant to accompany himself on guitar and he had no clue how to play. So he was going to have to brave this task with just his voice and hope Ginny didn't go deaf.

He did think he had a decent voice and had felt a bit more reassured when Neville said he sounded nice. But singing in the shower was one thing… singing in front of the entire Great Hall was something else. He'd really rather go face Voldemort in some aspects than admit his feelings to a girl he had a major crush on.

The whole morning had passed in a blur as he mechanically moved through Charms class and Defense Against the Dark Arts. He kept repeating the lyrics in his head, so afraid he was going to screw something up when he sang. What if he accidently insulted her? Or she hated him afterwards and refused to talk to him? What then?

During DADA he made the mistake of catching Snape's eye and immediately had a horrible flashback to his dream. He'd flushed and paled at the same time and Snape had been giving him a wide berth since then, giving him odd looks whenever he glanced in his direction.

As they were dismissed from Charms Ron caught up to him, a wide, shark-like grin on his face. "Ready for your musical debut?" he asked. Harry was sure Ron's forehead, if he could see it, had something like 'evilly excited' on it or something.

"I'm going to be sick," he mumbled, feeling like there were kangaroos in his stomach that were having a jumping contest.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, having overheard the last bit. "Is everything okay, Harry?"

"My life is flashing before my eyes."

She turned her gaze to Ron. She'd spoken to him briefly during Charms to inquire about his and Pansy's situation, but other than that she hadn't been able to see what had made Harry look so positively green.

"You'll see," he said in a sing-song voice. "Just pay close attention during lunch."

They'd made it to the Great Hall now, where Harry easily spotted Ginny due to her hair. She was sitting by herself at least. That was good. He didn't want to interrupt her conversations with anyone after all. Although he sort of wished she wasn't here because then he wouldn't have to do this!

Ron pulled Hermione to some seats about three spaces down from Ginny, where he knew they would have a good view. Hermione was torn between amusement and concern, as Harry looked like he were going to faint at any minute while Ron kept chuckling.

He approached her like one would a Basilisk and gently slid himself partway on to the bench next to her, one foot propped up on it.

"Why, hello there Harry," she said, slurping up some chicken noodle soup. Her eyes sparkled up at him and Harry felt his stomach unclench just a little bit. He could do this. At least his lyrics made sense, as compared to the awful singing Valentine she'd sent him during his second year.

"Harry?" she asked, as he continued to just stare at her, admiring the way her red hair gently lay on her back and matched so well to her Gryffindor tie.

"I… I need to ask you something," he said, taking a deep breath.

"Okay…"

"Unfortunately, due to someone who I shall not mention I have to ask you a little, er, differently."

She just looked beyond confused at his point.

"Okay, here I go," he mumbled. "Just please, please don't laugh."

He began to tap his foot on the bench, building up a nice rhythm all the while wishing he knew how to play guitar. Several people were now looking over, attracted by the noise.

And then Harry opened his mouth, singing to the song he'd heard in his dreams with a few modified changes.

"You're tall and fun and skinny  
And really, really pretty – Gin-ny…"

The girl blushed, her face now rivaling her hair. Several people "awwwed" and slowly a crowd began to form around the impromptu song. Harry paid them no need and continued staring directly into Ginny's eyes.

"I'm the Mickey to your Minnie  
You're the Tigger to my Winnie – Gin-ny..." Never mind she probably had no idea who those characters were, they rhymed and were adorable.

"You're the sugar in my tea  
You mean the world to me – Gin-ny!"

His voice then took on a different tone, a bit more teasing as a playful, shy smile passed over his lips.

"You're cuter than a guinea pig…  
I wanna take you up to Winnipeg –That's in Canada!" he added, almost as an afterthought.

Then, softer once more he sang:

"But I'll settle for Hogsmeade,  
Ginny… will you go out with me?"

She was still blushing violently, but a smile was bursting on her features as she reached forward and grabbed Harry's tie.

"Does this answer your question?" she asked, pulling him down for a kiss to a loud symphony of catcalls, hooting, and all the girls cooing.

Harry only grinned and thought he was the luckiest guy in the world.

**Author's Notes:**

How many Very Potter Musical/A Very Potter Sequel references can you find? On that note, some of the song lyrics are copyrighted to them, I only borrow their brilliance.

Fun note. As of yesterday I am now a college graduate! Graduated from Elmhurst College with a degree in English writing, _Magna Cum Laude _and Honors Scholar :D So excited! As such, I'm now looking for a job, so although I have "free" time I'm not sure how much will be for fanfiction. I will do my best though to try and update BULL every 2-3 weeks again. If any of you know any PR companies or some type of writing/magazine job in the Chicagoland area please give me a shout! :D

Would love to hear your thoughts on the chapter, it was one of my favorites to write so far :)

_Updated on: May 29, 2011_


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